Amalgam
by AquilaKate
Summary: Collection of short stories from seasons one and two.
1. First Aid (Charlie)

**First Aid**

Mike's had a bad morning already. And things aren't looking up when Jakes follows him into the house grinning like an idiot. _It wasn't that funny._

A heavy hand thumps his back, and he holds his wrist tighter to his chest. "I'm telling you, Levi," Jakes repeats. "You can't baby it. Start using it again and it will good as new."

"That's terrible advice," Charlie says from behind the newspaper. "Whatever you do, don't listen to it."

He nods and holds up his injured wrist, using the other hand to support it. Charlie breathes sharply. "What happened?"

Jakes snorts. "Mikey got beat up by a bird."

Technically, the seagull never touched him. But it swooped low enough beside him to make him jerk to left, go tumbling off his board, and land awkwardly on his wrist. Of course, Jakes was on the beach to witness the whole thing, making it the most embarrassing thing to happen to him that week.

To her credit, Charlie doesn't ask questions. She calls him over to the bench and takes his wrist in her hands, twisting and stretching it until she makes a conclusion.

"You'll live, I think," she says winking. "DJ, are you gonna get us an ACE bandage or have you taken a vow to be completely unhelpful this morning?"

"I'm always helpful," he disagrees, handing it nicely to her instead of tossing it (because it's Charlie). "Who do you think fished him out of the Pacific?"

 _Yeah_. Jakes grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and hauling him to his feet while he splutters and coughs up salt water. The _second_ most embarrassing thing to happen to him this week.

Charlie wraps his wrist neatly, before patting him on the back and getting to her feet. "Rest that," she says sternly. "And I don't trust you, so I'm going to get your squeezy thing."

"It's actually a hand strength-"

"Doesn't matter," Jakes says, munching on a pack of crackers. "It's Charlie's now."

* * *

 _"_ _Paige."_

She slides away from him and nearly falls off the back of the counter. There's a dishtowel pressed tightly to her forehead, and when he tries to move it, she squirms and holds tighter. Paul sighs, starting to feel frustrated with the whole situation. "I can't help if you won't let me see it."

"It's fine!" Paige snaps. Blood trickles down the side of her face.

Just as he begins to entertain the notion of either pinning her down or leaving her to bleed out while he catches a few relaxing waves, Charlie enters looking suspicious. "What's going on in here? Jakes says there's blood in the kitchen."

"Perp knocked her feet out from under her and she hit her head," he explains, making one final grab for the towel that Paige dodges with ease. "She won't hold still and let me look at it."

"Course not," Charlie says sharply. "Let's bang you on the forehead, see how cooperative you are."

She shoos Briggs out of the way, gently pulling the towel away and examining the injury for herself. Charlie hisses in sympathy. "Ow."

Paul takes that as his cue to run and grab the first aid kit. When he returns, Paige is leaning back over the sink, letting Charlie flush some of the blood off the gash with a mug and her cupped hands. Once, it's clean, they can see the dark, swelling bump under the cut.

"We might have to go-" He takes the hint and shuts up when Charlie steps on his foot, glaring. Paige is notoriously skittish about hospitals. Someone lost a tooth during the great appendicitis incident of 2011.

Finally, when the butterfly bandage is applied and covered with gauze, it looks like the bleeding has been stopped. Paige goes on her merry way, with instructions to wash the red stain out of her hair as carefully as she can.

"I had it handled," Paul complains when Charlie looks at him, suppressing a laugh.

"Yeah, what were you gonna do? Tape the towel to her head and hope for the best?"

He sort of wishes he'd thought of that

* * *

A shadow blocks her sunlight, leaving a spot on her stomach uncomfortably cool. One eye opens wide enough to make sure no one is about to kill her before lolling closed.

"Agent Warren."

A sigh and some shuffling in the sand. "You remember when you said if we kept playing football in the house someone was going to get hurt?"

Both eyes open. " _Yes…_ "

Mike rubs a hand across the back of his neck. "Someone got hurt."

Charlie takes a deep breath and flips her sunglasses to the top of her head. She marches back towards the house, waving a hand behind her to prod Mike into picking up her chair and beach bag.

In the living room, Paige is straddling Johnny's lap, holding a bag of mixed vegetables to his injured eye with both hands. She's looking around the room with a panicked grimace on her face, which relaxes in relief when she sees that Mike brought back up.

"I don't know first aid," she admits, lifting the edge of the bag to peer at the injury underneath. "Is it okay that these are thawed?"

She gets a glimpse of the damage done to his eye and slams the bag back down a little too roughly. Johnny howls.

"Okay, okay." Gently, Charlie tugs her off Johnny's lap and nudges her to the side. "Thank you, nurse Paige. I think that's about all the first aid we can stand for the day."

Prodding fingers along the line of his cheekbone confirm that there's no break. Just a nasty black eye with a cheek to match.

"What did they do to you, huh?" she asks.

When she said someone was going to get hurt, she kind of assumed she'd be the one doing it.

—

She's stepped on a broken beer bottle on her way home, which is a shitty way to end a shittier night. The cut, on top of the blisters left by the shoes that are dangling from her hand, has her limping into the kitchen with a scowl on her face.

"Nice night, Chuck?" Paul asks from the table, where he's sitting with the rest of the house. Charlie suppresses a growl and hops up on a barstool to inspect her foot. The cut is wide and deep, contaminated with sand and dirt. She grabs the bottle of antiseptic to clean it out.

The others are watching from the table, but no one has jumped up to help. She doesn't blame them, knowing that she'd send them straight back anyway.

"Needs stitches," she mumbles when Paige asks how bad it is.

Paul nods and hops up, climbing over housemates to get to his car keys. "I'll drive you."

"Drive me where?" she asks, cutting off a length of surgical thread.

"Wait, are you-"

"Charlie!"

"Ugh!"

Just as she touches the needle to her skin, Paige, Mike and Johnny flee from the room in varying states of distress.

"You traumatized them," Jakes says, sounding oddly protective. He follows them into the living room, looking back at her like she's offended him on a personal level.

Paul is staring at her, looking kind of sick. "You need any help?"

"No," she says, snatching the beer out of his hand and taking a swig before getting to work.

"There's something really wrong with you, Charlie." Paul kisses the top of her head and turns to leave too. "I like it, but there's something really wrong."

Funny, she was starting to think the same thing about everyone else.


	2. Permanent (CharlieBriggs)

**Permanent**

When he steps across the threshold, it has officially been almost twenty hours since he's been home, twenty-one since he's slept, and fifteen since he's had anything to eat. Because he's pretty sure he doesn't even have the energy to make himself a sandwich, Paul focuses on making it up the stairs and into bed.

Charlie will be asleep by now, but he'll be able to pull her over to his side of the bed and sleep with her tucked against him until it's time for her to get up. After the day he's had, he has a feeling she'll give him until at least noon before she insists on getting up and being productive. The thought is enough to get him to pull himself up the last few steps and into his room.

The first thing he sees is the lit end of her cigarette, dangerously close to his curtains, dangling from her fingers as she sits back against the open window frame. He blinks and scrubs a hand across his eye. When he looks up again, she's still there, so this isn't some kind of over-tired delusion.

"You're going to fall out of that window, and now everything I own is going to smell like smoke," he says softly when he close enough. He bends down to brush his lips against her temple, but she dodges it and keeps her eyes averted.

"I never took you for a cheater, Paul Briggs," she mutters.

That was unexpected. _This day._ "What are you talking about?"

Charlie doesn't answer. He uses the silence to review every interaction he's had with the opposite sex in the past week, trying the pick out the one that could be so misconstrued that it could make her think he would hurt her like that. Coming up blank, he asks again. "Charlie? Come on. Tell me."

"Heard you paid a visit to my girl at the shop. Martina." She's still not looking at him, so she doesn't see his face flash from realization to confusion again.

"The tattoo? This is about the tattoo?" he says, laughing a little in disbelief. "Jesus, Chuck. You gave me a heart attack."

One razor sharp look tells him that this was not the correct response because this is still apparently a very serious issue and he should be very afraid. "You're upset because I asked someone else to tattoo me?" he says in what he believes to be a very reasonable tone of voice.

She jumps down from the window and stomps past him, intentionally ramming her shoulder into his. Her cigarette is doused in a glass of water on his bedside table.

"What? You thought I would be okay with this? That I wouldn't be offended?" She whirls to face him, pointer finger outstretched inches from his chest.

"Charlie-"

"Am I not good enough for you? You have a problem with the way I do my job?"

Technically, it isn't really her job. But Briggs isn't stupid, so instead he says, "Charlie-"

"Give me one good reason. One! And maybe I don't kick your ass."

"Fine. Turn the light on."

Charlie eyes him suspiciously, clearly not expecting him to be able to justify his actions. Even so, she flicks the lamp on. He uses the soft light to look for a slip of paper in his wallet. When he finds it, he smiles softly and uses his thumb to smooth it out before handing it over for inspection. The light is kind of dim, so she has to hold the paper close to her face to make out the small, inscribed, interlocking handguns. "Bonnie and Clyde," she says quietly, immediately realizing the significance.

"Yeah," he nods, hesitantly moving towards her. When she doesn't step away, he makes a risky move and slips his arms around her. Charlie leans into him, but keeps her eyes on the paper. "She didn't actually do it today, just drew it up for me. You sure know how to ruin a surprise, don't you?"

"This is…" she shakes her head. "Very permanent."

"You've already made your mark, Chuck. May as well make it visible." She's still staring at the design with this faraway look in her eyes. It's starting to make him nervous. "Unless you don't think it's a good idea."

With a quick breath, Charlie seems to snap out of it, shaking her head. She pulls herself up and presses her lips against his, and Briggs relaxes because this is exactly what he needed after today. "Stay here," she orders, walking backwards until she slips out through the door.

When she returns, she has the tattoo kit that she keeps in her room for personal use. Briggs grins.

"Where?" she asks, setting up her equipment. He pulls his shirt off and traces a pattern on his chest, over his heart.

He pulls a chair out, and Charlie pushes him back into it before settling herself straddling his lap with her head on his shoulder.

"The others are asleep," she says, nuzzling her forehead into the crook of his neck. "Think you can try not to cry like a big baby?"

"Depends. Are you gonna be good to me?"

She snorts and starts to trace the outline of the future tattoo with her lips, breath hot against his heart.

Maybe this day is looking up after all.


	3. Spotless (Johnny and Jakes)

**Spotless**

 _Takes place during 2x05, when Jakes knocks on Johnny's door. Right after:_

 _"_ _You wanna, um…spray while I scrub?"_

"Yeah," Jakes agrees after a moment. "Let's do it."

Johnny looks surprised, and he doesn't blame him because the last thing he saw himself doing tonight was volunteering to help with someone else's chores. But before he can decide if he was being totally serious or not, Johnny has already tossed his headphones on the bed and headed off down the hall. Okay. Apparently they're really doing this.

The bucket of cleaning supplies has already been placed in front of the door, a not so subtle hint from one of their housemates that they'd like the job done ASAP. When they open the door, they figure out why.

"Dude," Johnny whines, covering his nose with his shirt. The smell of sick is overpowering, but Jakes has become kind of accustomed to it over the last few days, so he manages to enter long enough to throw the window open as wide as it can go.

While he's leaning against the window sill, sucking in as much fresh air as his lungs can hold, Johnny makes a trip down the hall and back. He returns with some scented candles from the supply closet and a lighter from Charlie's room.

" _Luau Party_ ," he reads, squinting at the label. "What the hell does a luau party smell like?"

"Better than this, I'm sure of it. Light it."

Since he's the one who did the damage and let's face it, he's a nice guy, Jakes picks up the scrub brush and takes the job of scrubbing the toilet himself. That leaves Johnny with the task of cleaning the mirror, which he clambers up on the sink to do.

Jakes snorts, closing his eyes to fend off an incoming headache. "This is just fantastic," he grumbles. "Everyone else in this damn house is making kissy faces at each other, and we're scrubbing toilets at 10:00 at night."

"Not everyone," Johnny corrects, swiping a paper towel at his face in the mirror, trying to get rid of the streaks. "Paige is working in her room, and Mike is…I don't know where Mike is."

"Also in Paige's room."

Both the Johnny in the mirror and the one on the counter pause to let that sink in. "No," he says, a grin slowly spreading over his face. "Really?"

Jakes nods and unscrews the spray top of the toilet cleaner to dump some straight into the bowl.

"I knew it!" Johnny whoops, jumping down from the counter to inspect his work. "I don't know which one I should be more proud of."

"How about me, for not puking again?"

He's done with the toilet now, so he grabs the soap dish and toothbrush holder off of the counter so Johnny can clean under them. Johnny shakes his head and starts to wipe down the countertop. "Come on, man. What do you got against young love?"

It's takes a minute for him to figure that out, and another to decide whether or not to open that can of worms with Johnny of all people. Eventually, he decides that things can't get much worse than they already are and shrugs. "Starts out fine. But then it ends with restraining orders and someone getting tackled by the freaking police in front of his kid."

A beat of silence. Johnny stops working and turns around, looking genuinely gutted on his behalf. "Dude, that sucks. Did you even get to talk to him?"

"If you can call screaming like a lunatic, face down on the sidewalk 'talking' then yeah, we had a nice chat." He scrubs the back of his hand across his brow and looks out the window. "I told him that I'm his father. No way he believes me. Probably never wants to see me again."

"Man," Johnny scoffs. "If you think that, then you really know absolutely nothing about kids."

Jakes sighs. "What are you talking about, Johnny?"

"I mean, you just dangled this big, juicy piece of information in front of him, and his mom's probably telling him not to ask questions and shit. Now you are _the_ most interesting man on the planet. He's never been this curious about anyone before. This is like, the best thing that could have happened to you."

 _If that's true_ …he shakes his head, not ready to let himself believe it. When he looks up, Johnny's staring at him, looking older than he's ever been before. "I'm serious. He's gonna figure it out, and when he does, he's gonna know how bad you wanted to see him. It'll mean something."

He's too tired, has had too much history with Cassandra to really be able to trust that, but still. It's something to think about.

"Thanks, man," he says sincerely. "And about…everything. I'm…I'm really-"

"Save it," Johnny grins. "You can make it up to me by helping me finish the other bathrooms. And then we can go camp out in Levi's room and scare the crap out of him when he tries to sneak back in."

Maybe he's just glad that things are getting back to normal, but at the moment, Jakes can't think of anything else he'd like more.


	4. Click (Paige)

**Click**

 _Four housemates take their turn in Paige's room after 2x06. One doesn't get the chance._

Charlie takes the first shift, sitting on the floor next her and prodding her into taking bites of toast and canned soup. She's hesitant at first, still kind of queasy from the drugs that they gave her to bring up the balloons, but once she starts talking about Mike, her anger claims all her attention and her hands eat automatically. Eventually, she relaxes enough to let Charlie work a brush through the grimy knots in her hair and untangle the tracking barrette from where it's stuck near the nape of her neck. Charlie nods along while she rants and doesn't mention that she never would have forgiven Mike if he came back without her.

Sometimes Johnny has issues with things like _space_ and _boundaries_ , which is why he's waiting in her room when she's done with her shower. He also has this thing where he talks relentlessly when he's nervous or uncomfortable. But today, even that fails him, so he plays it by instinct and wraps his arms around her, pressing sloppy kisses into her wet hair. She would normally shove him off and playfully swat at his hands until he leaves her alone, but today she stays stiff and silent in his grasp. It's when it occurs to him that she may just be too tired to fight him that he jolts back like he's been shocked and leaves her to dry her hair in peace.

Briggs is the one that finds her double checking the locks in the middle of the night and leads her back to bed with an arm around her shoulders. She has never been safer than she is in this house, he promises, because there is _nothing they wouldn't do_ to keep her safe. He waits until he's sure she's asleep to pull the picture he printed off of the traffickers' website out of his wallet. She would be mortified to see him with it, but it's the only thing that soothes the gnawing guilt in his chest. If it helped take that terrified look off her face in the picture, he thinks what he did to Lawrence is something he can learn to live with.

The night after he gives her the music box is the first night Jakes spends sober since Cassandra brings in the big guns and his entire life implodes. This is not to say that he doesn't _want_ to drink. It's just that it feels really wrong to move her head off his chest to go looking for something to ease his own pain. She's not crying anymore, but she's not talking either, and he's not exactly sure what she wants from him now. He does know that when he figures it out, he'll do it, whatever it is. He's got a lot to make up for.

Mike doesn't know whether he should knock or not. He hasn't since they started doing whatever they've been doing, but he'd be an idiot to think things haven't changed. He decides that no, things aren't so bad that he's lost that privilege and goes to let himself in. The lock clicks shut. He announces himself and tries again. The knob doesn't give.

Paige sinks to the ground on the other side and waits for him to walk away.


	5. Word (PaigeMike)

**Word**

 _Post 2x06_

 _"_ _Your word is shit."_

Before he left, he received explicit instructions to call as soon as they got in the truck. After their fight, if it could be called that, Mike forgets his marching orders for about eight miles and shoves his hand into his pocket, swearing, when he remembers. He's lucky because no one mentions the delay when he finally calms down enough to punch in the number for the house land line. He's not really the one they want to hear anyway, so he hands the phone over to Paige.

It's when he hears her answering questions that he should have thought to ask that he starts to feel a twist of guilt. Yes, she's fine. No, she doesn't need to go to the hospital. He glances at her knee and wonders if that's really true, but doesn't feel like he's in a good enough place to disagree with her right now.

He can tell when someone new takes the phone because her shoulders drop in relief and she sags against the car door, pressing her bruised eye up against the cool glass. He wonders who she's talking to now because whoever it is manages to talk her off the edge. Maybe Charlie? He wishes it could have been him.

When she hangs up the phone but shows no signs of wanting to start a conversation with him, he decides to disrupt the uncomfortable silence and turn on the radio. Less than a minute later, she turns the dial and flicks it back off.

"What, you don't like my taste in music?" he asks, smiling tentatively. Paige doesn't return it, and his face falls.

He remembers teasing her for some old nineties station that she likes to listen to the last time they were in the car. Maybe he can find it. But when he reaches for the dial to try, she covers it with her hand. His resolve to not fight with her is not as strong as his desire to not ride the rest of the way in silence, so he slaps her hand away and turns it back on. Paige rears back like she's been shocked.

 _Shit_.

"I'm sorry," he says cautiously. "I wasn't think-"

"Stop," she hisses. "Stop acting like it's business as usual. You don't get to decide that it's time to be normal."

Mike swallows. "I'm sorry."

And he is. If he'd known the music thing was anything other than her trying to get on his nerves, he never would have pushed her.

"Look," he tries again. "I'm not trying to minimize-"

"I swear to god, Mike, I will get out and walk home."

From anyone else, it would be an empty threat. From Paige, he believes it. So he dutifully shuts the hell up.

He willingly gives her all the space she wants on the drive home, but the second the house comes into view, he starts picturing days going by without the others giving him a moment alone with her and panics. If he doesn't say his piece now, it could be a long time before they get to talk in private.

"We're gonna go back," he promises, after pulling over to the side of the road and turning off the engine. "In a few days, we're going to go and get those girls. All of them."

"And the buyers between now and then? What happens to the girls they take?" She laughs humorlessly and if he's not mistaken, a little hysterically. "Sucks to be them, I guess. They picked a bad time to be _sold_."

She stares at him and he realizes that this is the first time their eyes have met since before they dragged her out behind him. Jesus, should her black eye look this bad already?

"Have I ever broken a promise to you?" he asks desperately.

Paige blinks and turns back to the window, quiet. Mike takes that as a no, and turns the truck back on, feeling somewhat vindicated. At least, he does until she speaks again, and her words knock the air out of his stomach.

 _"_ _Have you ever kept one?"_


	6. Worth It (Jakes)

**Worth It**

 _Jakes thinks he needs to learn to cook to be a better dad. He wishes he had someone a hell of a lot less smug than Charlie to teach him._

 **Worth It**

"I need your help," Jakes says one day, while they're alone in the surveillance van watching Mike schmooze an arms dealer. "I have a kid."

Charlie blinks and stares. "And you need my help to…?"

He sighs and checks the monitors, not really able to look at her for this. "I want to spend more time with him."

"Oh, baby-"

"No!" he says, sighing because he's screwing this all up. "It's just…what the hell am I gonna feed him?"

She grins, and he gets the idea that he just signed himself up for a whole load of trouble.

"Something smells good," Paige praises, sitting down at the stool across from him. Grinning at the compliment, Jakes offers her a bite because Charlie isn't there to enforce her "no tasting" rule.

Of course, Charlie chooses that moment to come back and check on him. When she sees what they're doing, her eyes widen and she races to knock the spoon out of his hands. It clatters back in the skillet, spattering quinoa and peppers all over the counter. Jakes rears back. "Hey!"

Charlie ignores him, grabbing Paige by the chin and turning her head side to side. "Did you eat any of that?" she asks urgently.

Jakes watches in confusion. Is he really so bad that she thinks he'd poison someone? Paige shakes her head, staring at him like she's thinking the exact same thing.

"Thank god," Charlie says, sagging in relief before turning and pointing a stern finger at him. "First rule, make sure the kid doesn't have any allergies before you put anything near his face."

Something stirs in his memory from when Paige first moved in and again more recently from ten minutes ago when he doused the whole skillet in walnut oil. Oh, yeah. He knew that about her. Now he remembers.

"What kid?" Paige asks, gently swatting Charlie's hands away from her face. "And did you just almost kill me?"

Jakes nods, a little stunned. "Yeah, sorry."

"It happens," Paige shrugs. "Charlie did it twice my first month here."

They're both ejected from the kitchen. He doesn't even get to taste his stir-fry.

"It tastes…fishy."

Jakes blinks. "It's fish, Johnny."

"Well, yeah, but it doesn't have to taste so…" He waves his hands over his plate, searching for a word that won't come. "… _fishy_."

"Actually, it does. It really has to taste 'so fishy'."

"Can you make pancakes?"

"No!"

"Can _I_ make pancakes?"

"Get out of here!"

Johnny slips out past where Charlie is leaning against the wall, grinning at his misery.

"Shut up," Jakes says preemptively. She laughs.

"Kids are like that." She shrugs. "You can make a five star meal, and sometimes all that want is macaroni and cheese. Don't take it personally."

He abandons the leftovers on the stove and heads to his room to take some relaxing breaths. "My son is nothing like Johnny!" he calls over his shoulder.

But just in case, he'll stock up on the mac and cheese.

The first time she lets him feed the entire house, they pass the dinner off as Paul's doing. They were never going to get an honest, unbiased opinion if they said he made it because the others like to mess with him too much. And let's face it, they'd never believe it was something Charlie made.

Jakes drags a chair up next to Charlie's spot on the bench and pretends like he doesn't care if they damn well like it or not.

Paige takes the first bite nudges her shoulder against Paul's before continuing to eat with no knowledge of the significance of the moment. When Briggs passes the silent compliment along with a nod and a smile, Dale manages to relax. So when it comes down to it, he can feed his kid. That's all he's asking for here.

Except, it isn't exactly a bad feeling watching his housemates bicker and laugh, eating the food that _he_ made. Levi somehow got stuck between Paige and Johnny, and the two are tormenting him relentlessly, which you know, is kinda nice to see. Things escalate until the rookie nearly gets skewered by a kabob stick and lobs a piece of shrimp in retaliation. It lands in Charlie's glass, and she snaps and repositions everyone to put an end to the fuss.

With Paige and Johnny sitting contritely between Briggs and Charlie, Mike can finally relax and eat his dinner.

"This is good," he mumbles in Briggs's direction, through a mouthful of vegetables.

Jakes nods instinctively before catching himself and looking at Charlie, who smiles and mutters, "Worth it, huh?"

And yeah. It kind of is.


	7. Understood (Paige and Johnny)

**Understood**

 _Paige's mission goes terrifyingly sour. Johnny's there to save the day, pick up the pieces, and proves he understands more than the others give him credit for._

 **Understood**

She's been in this club for at least three hours, and she hasn't gotten anything but a headache out of it. Her latest mark is having the time of his life, though, jumping wildly in the middle of the dance floor. Eyes glazed over, he's clearly hopped up on something good. Not the ecstasy that she's been chasing, but some other designer drug that's making him more handsy and erratic than usual. As far as undercover drug investigating goes, tracking uppers really sucks. It's easy to act lethargic without any chemical intervention, but it's hard to keep up with these guys with just a handful of caffeine pills in her system.

Goosebumps follow his fingers up the back of her thigh, and Paige suppresses a groan. She'd really like to punch his lights out, but instead she grinds into him and pretends it doesn't make her want to throw up.

The strobe light makes it difficult to focus on her date's face when he speaks. However, even if she can't quite decipher what he's saying, she reads the hand that disappears under her dress pretty loud and clear. "You need to relax, baby," he slurs in her ear.

Oh boy. This could go one of two ways. One, he offers her a little something chemical to loosen her up, which would be excellent for her case. Or two, he takes his groping to the next level and tries to take her back to his place.

Paige throws the rest of her drink back. _Here's hoping for door number one._

His arm braces against her back, and he leads her out the side door. Paige grimaces, feeling his tongue next to her ear. Obviously, he's more interested in option two…

He pushes her up against the side of the building behind the cover of the dumpster and slobbers all over her mouth. "Babe," she says, wincing. "Stop."

One of his hands gathers both of her wrists and he slams his mouth against hers, knocking her head into the wall in the process. Dirty fingernails dig into her thighs, and she's pretty sure she feels blood. "Seriously, knock it off."

She tries to push him away, but he's apparently done playing nice. His fist smashes into her face, and Paige tries to pull her wrists out of his hands, face stinging and eyes watering.

"Hey!"

 _Johnny_. She almost sobs in relief.

She can breathe again when Johnny tears the guy off of her and pins him to ground, kneeling on his chest to make him squirm.

"Don't come near her again, you hear me?" he hisses, hand crushing the other man's face into the ground. "I will break your arms. Get outta here. Don't touch her. Don't look at her. If you think about her again, I will separate your head from your body with your own freakin' tie."

It's too much all of a sudden, and Paige _sinks,_ sliding down the wall to rest on the filthy ground. Faintly, she hears the scrambling, fleeing sound that signals her date's abrupt departure.

"Paige?" Johnny whispers, crouching next to her and gently putting a hand on her knee. "Come on, mama. Look at me."

She looks up, hoping he can't see the tears in her eyes. However, from the look on his face, she knows that he can. "C'mere," he says, pulling her into him. "I gotcha. You're okay."

Paige hiccups. "I thought-"

"I know," he soothes, catching her head under his chin and rocking gently. "I know what you thought. I thought it, too. Geez, Paige. You scared the shit outta me."

She rests against his shoulder and _breathes_. Doesn't think about what just happened or the diseases she's probably contracting from sitting on the ground in this alley. For once, Johnny's silent, letting her process this on her own time without his input. It's sensitive of him, and she appreciates it, but at the same time, she wishes he would say something to drown out her thoughts.

Paige would gladly stay there all night, but Johnny must take her slowed breathing relaxed spine as a sign that she's ready to move because he slowly helps her to her feet. His arm remains tightly around her shoulder, as they stumble to the truck, slowly to keep Paige from falling off her high heels. He opens her door and waits for her to buckle before sliding in on the driver's side.

"You cold?" he asks gently, fiddling with the knob to turn up the heat.

Her shivering is actually entirely unrelated to the temperature, but that's not something that she's going to advertise. "Yeah," she whispers, shrugging and crossing her arms over her chest. "A little."

Somehow, he manages to wrap his arm around her and maneuver the car one-handed as they pull off the curb and head back to Graceland. "Let's get you home, mama. That sound good?"

She nods. "What were you doing there?"

"Same thing as you," he shrugs. "Out with Carlito. Using my handsome wiles and whatnot."

"I wish you didn't have to do that," she murmurs, voice sounded haunted and hollow to her own ears.

"I do too, babe, but we both know that with this gorgeous face of mine-"

"Stop," Paige hisses. "Take it seriously. These things can go bad real quick…you saw-"

She chokes on her words, and Johnny frantically starts rubbing her arm again, the friction finally taking away some of the chill.

"I know, I know," he promises. "I'll be careful. And for what it's worth, I wish you didn't have to do it either."

The air is heavy now and if he isn't going to lighten the mood, then it's up to her. "Guess that's the price we pay for being so damn irresistible."

Johnny tries to nod somberly, but she can see him holding back a grin. She laughs and straightens her shoulders, can practically visualize herself pulling it together as they head back to Graceland. That suffocated feeling is gone and things don't seem so bad now that she knows she has someone around who understands.


	8. Black and White (PaigeMike)

**Black and White**

Charlie answers Paige's door when he knocks, which was pretty much the worst case scenario here. "Can I help you?"

"You can go away, and Paige can help me," he says honestly. When she doesn't move to let him in, he rolls his eyes. "We're just gonna watch a movie."

She raises an eyebrow, and Mike tries to figure out what was so wrong with that sentence.

He sighs. "I'm going to ask if she wants to watch a movie, and I will leave if she doesn't."

"She knows if she yells for me, I'll come back up here and start breaking bones," Charlie says like it's a given, and he doesn't doubt it.

"Duly noted."

"Not just a rib either. Like a femur."

"Goodbye, Charlie."

The door is already open, so Mike awkwardly raps on the door frame. Paige doesn't answer, but he was expecting that so he comes in anyway.

"Hi," he says quietly, almost immediately losing faith in this plan. It seemed less stupid in the hallway. He puts the laptop down in front of her, and when she doesn't swat it off the bed, he decides to really go through with this. "Shirley Temple was a child star. She was an actress and a singer, and-"

"I don't need the whole Wikipedia page, Mike."

Slowly, he crawls up on the bed next to her and relaxes against the pillows. "Maybe not, but it got you to talk to me."

He flips the laptop open and hits play, pressing the volume button until it's loud enough for both of them to hear it. " _The Little Princess_ , 1939," he presents.

Her hand shoots out and slams the laptop shut as the opening credits start to play.

"I'm not going to sit here and watch a movie while those girls are being sold," she snaps, shifting further away from him. She ends up nearly hanging off the edge of the bed, which looks uncomfortable but is apparently more bearable than being near him. He sucks in a pained breath.

"I know this isn't what you want to hear," he says tentatively. "But making yourself miserable isn't going to take away a second of their pain."

Paige chokes on a sob. Without thinking, his hand automatically moves to stroke the back of her head. She curls into herself so he's no longer touching her, and he can't remember anything hurting quite that much in a long time. "Paige…"

Part of him wants to give up and leave her alone because that's clearly what she wants. But another part remembers that she wasn't crying before he came in and screams for him to fix what he broke.

"I'm not going to pretend that I know what went on in there." He hesitates, staring at the back of her head for signs that she's about to snap. "But I know it was bad."

She's silent for a minute, but eventually swallows and says, "Worst I've ever seen."

That's something. A horrifying something, but something nonetheless. "You must have been terrified."

Her face flames red, which gives him his answer and so much more. She shakes her head. "I'm DEA."

"You think that means you didn't have a right to be scared?" he guesses, eyes wide with the realization. "Because that isn't true," he says urgently. "It really isn't."

One look at the expression on her face tells him that he's hit the nail on the head, and he feels irrationally angry at the rest of his housemates. They've all been in here sometime in the past few days and no one thought to tell her that?

"Paige, look at me," he pleads. She does, and he almost rears back in shock, not expecting her to listen so easily. "Just because you're a federal agent doesn't mean that you can't be scared, or hurt, or feel bad for yourself. You have every right to do all that."

She doesn't say anything, and he figures he might as well lay all his cards on the table. "You just can't stop talking to me," he mumbles, half hoping she doesn't hear it.

Paige stares, expression unreadable. "Why?"

Mike glances down and takes a big breath, bracing himself to be more honest than he's necessarily comfortable with. "Because I couldn't take it."

She snorts, and he shakes his head, wondering is she's intentionally _not getting it._ "Don't tell me you haven't noticed you're the only one in this house that I really talk to."

The seconds after he puts that out there are long and heavy. He's starting to regret it when she shifts to press herself against him, resting her head on her hands and her hands on his heart. "You should branch out," she says, and he laughs, a little disbelieving.

"I'm still mad," she assures him, murmuring into his chest and sending sparks up his spine. "I'm still _so mad_."

"Me too," he says, swallowing heavily and pressing a kiss to her hair. "Not at you. At me. Them. About…stuff."

"Stuff, huh?" she twists her neck to study him a minute, before reaching for the laptop and flipping the screen back up.

The voice of Shirley Temple blares from the speakers, and they get lost in a world of black and white.


	9. Talent (Johnny and Paige)

**Talent**

It only takes him a few minutes of digging to find what he got a glimpse of the _last time_ he was in Paige's closet without permission and emerge triumphant. "I knew it," he yells, holding the skateboard above his head in victory.

Paige glances at him, then looks back to her computer screen without comment.

"You can borrow it," she agrees. "There's another one in there if purple isn't your thing."

Johnny shakes his head. "I don't need to borrow it. Well, I mean, yeah I do. But I really need you to show me how to…you know…" He mimes swerving and jumping on a skateboard, almost knocking a lamp off the cabinet in the process. Paige blinks and stares.

"I don't know how to skate, Johnny," she denies, not meeting his eyes.

"You expect me to believe you packed like, your whole life into a storage unit when you moved in here, but you had room for a skateboard that you don't know how to use?" She leans back and squeezes her eyes shut, and he knows he's right.

"Come on, P. Seriously. I just got in with this crew, and they want to meet up at this skate…thing-"

"Park, Johnny. It's a park."

"And my cover isn't solid enough to lose cred with them right now," he whines. "Please? _Pleeease_?"

She sighs and makes some meaningless, fluttering gesture with her hands. "I just don't have time," she says, wavering. "Mike got me an in as a ballet tutor for this manufacturer's daughter on Saturday, and…"

" _And_ …what's the problem?"

She turns the laptop towards him, and he bends down to look at what's on the screen. A video tutorial of ballet for beginners…

"Alright," he groans, rubbing his hands over his face and sounding pained. "Alright. Let's make deal."

"Okay, keep your front foot down…keep it planted, you have to use it for balance…keep it - Johnny!"

"What?!"

Paige leans down and pokes at his feet. "Why do you keep trying to put your left foot in front? I thought you said the right felt better?"

"It did, but you said I was goofy!"

"That's just what it's called when you lead with your right!" she yells. "Didn't anyone tell you that when you started surfing?!"

Briggs whistles for her attention from where he's sitting on the front steps with Charlie and mimes taking deep, calming breaths. Paige obliges.

"Let's try again," she says evenly. "Keep your right foot planted in front, and push off with your left…there you go!"

Wobbling only slightly, Johnny glides slowly along the pavement, Paige following with her hands out to steady him if he should need it. "How'd you learn this anyway?" he asks, giving himself another push.

"My cousin bought the board for my brother's birthday, but he was too chicken to get on." She laughs and nudges his legs, holding his shoulders as he negotiates a turn. "So he taught me instead."

He dodges a pedestrian on the sidewalk and nearly face plants onto the concrete. Foot traffic seems to be picking up, so Paige hops on the board to ride back to the house, Johnny walking beside her. She does some fancy footwork and flips the board out from under her without losing her balance. Johnny whistles lowly, impressed.

"You're actually good," he praises, and she rolls her eyes at the unintended insult. "But I guess there weren't many skater posses in Beverly Hills, huh?

It was meant entirely as a joke, but for some reason she gets this resigned look on her face before planting her smile back on. "Not for girls, no."

They're quiet for a second, until Johnny swings around, grinning. "I just have this picture in my head of you with these little blonde pigtails sticking out the sides of your head, threatening to pound anyone who wouldn't let you play with them."

The satisfied smirk on her face tells him that yes, she had the neighborhood boys very afraid of the little girl on the skateboard.

"Good," Johnny nods along with the music, as Paige works at the bar. "But you have to keep everything straight. It should be like your shoulders are stacked on top of your back."

He braces one hand on her back and the other on her stomach as she slides down into plié. "And a seven year old is really going to know this?" she asks doubtfully.

Johnny shrugs. "Probably not. But if Mike's still using this cover when she gets her replacement tutor, I'm thinkin' you don't want her to realize you were a quack."

The music starts over and she wants to stop, but that's a valid point, so she starts all over again from the beginning.

"Tilt your foot when you point it. You should be able to see your heel."

Paige groans, frustrated, but makes the correction. She glances at the door to the studio anxiously. The last thing she needs is a class of actual dancers showing up at the community center to laugh at her.

"Don't worry," he encourages. "We should have at least until five until anyone shows."

"How do you know this place?" she asks, swiping her hair out of her face before grabbing back onto the bar.

"I used to come here," he admits. "That's how I learned. My mom had me in every class this place offered. Thought it would keep me out of trouble. I can also play racquetball and throw a damn fine piece of pottery."

She dips low again, and this time, doesn't knock into Johnny's hands on the way up. He grins and pats her back. "She sounds like a smart lady."

"She is," he agrees. "Except, she didn't count on all the trouble I'd get into on the way home. With the whole neighborhood waiting to beat up on the gang banger's ballerina brother."

Paige bites her lip, and her spine stiffens. "If we run into trouble on the way home, I'll shoot first and ask questions later," she promises.

Johnny laughs. "My hero. Now, quit doin that thing with your back. You look like a frickin ostrich."

He's on the floor, lying on his back with his legs on the bed when she comes in, sucking in a surprised gasp when she sees his face.

"You wiped out," she says, sounding stricken.

Johnny shrugs. "Yeah, but my cover's still intact, so it's all good. How was your thing?"

"Good." She drops down next to him and mimics his position. "Got what I needed and the guy tipped me ten bucks."

"Sweet!"

Mike walks by the open door and she pointedly raises her voice so he can hear. "But Mike made me turn it in to the FBI!"

"His loss. You could have used it to take him out on a nice- ugh!" He cuts off when Paige whaps him in the stomach, glaring.

"He actually gave me fifty," she admits lowly so Mike can't hear. She takes a twenty out of her pocket and lays it on his chest. "I figure half for teacher is fair."

"Keep it," Johnny laughs, holding his hand out for a high five. "You helped me out too."

"Hardly, you fell."

He glances at her and then sighs. "Actually, I didn't. I got in a little scuffle."

"Johnny!"

"I had to! There were these two grown ass men picking on this little girl who was just trying to skate. What was I supposed to do?"

Paige smiles fondly and ruffles his hair until he swats her away. "Blonde pigtails?" she guesses.

"Braids, but yeah. Same idea." He tugs on the end of her own blonde plait, and she rolls her eyes.

"Thank you," she says, smacking a kiss against his cheek. "Don't do it again."

"You got it, twinkle toes."

She digs her heel into the spot on his shin where she knows there's a bruise from one of their earlier lessons, and he retaliates by kicking the back of her sore calf muscle. Their legs get tangled in each other and go tumbling off the bed, leaving them in a sprawling pile of limbs on the floor.

It's a wonder either of them managed to survive the week.


	10. Sand and Salve (Charlie and Paige)

**Sand and Salve**

"It's too early," Paige complains, warily watching Charlie dig through her drawers with something akin to dismayed resignation. "And I don't want to go."

"We'll nap at the beach," Charlie promises. She lays a pile of clothes at the foot of the bed and pulls the covers down off of her before grabbing her shoulders and pulling her upright into a seated position. Without the blankets, cool air attacks Paige's bare legs, which is not the first thing she has to be grumpy about that morning.

Charlie doesn't seem to care. "Get dressed," she calls over her shoulder on her way out.

She does. But only because she's pretty sure Charlie will do it forcibly if she doesn't.

Twenty minutes later, she's following her down the beach, pointedly rubbing at her eyes and making tired little moaning noises that would normally earn her all kinds of sympathy from Charlie but today seem to be doing nothing. They set up their chairs and towels as close to the water as they can get without actually getting wet and settle in. Paige takes out her phone to ask Johnny to text her case updates.

"No," Charlie says firmly, snatching the phone away and tucking it in her beach bag. "No work. I have magazines, and books, or you can sit here and enjoy my pleasant company, but no phone and no work."

"Charlie…" she sighs, already cranky because her knee is sore from walking on the uneven sand on the way down here. "I have to. The sooner we get this case closed, the sooner I can go get my girls."

But Charlie ignores this entirely and reaches to rub in a spot of sunblock that Paige accidently left on her temple, carefully avoiding putting any pressure on her black eye. "Magazine?" she offers cheerfully.

They work their way through the entire stack, and then do it again when Charlie catches on to the fact that she's just turning pages as fast as she can and not actually looking at anything. "I swear, if you don't start to relax, I will get Paul down here to…zen you or something." She makes a vague swirling hand motion to accompany her threat.

Paige snorts. "Can you zen a person?"

"Keep it up, and we'll find out."

Under threat of _zenning_ , she manages to coach herself into unwinding a little, first reading three celebrity magazines cover to cover before starting a novel that somehow Charlie knew she wanted to read. She's almost ready to take her up on that nap on the beach, when she spots Mike heading into the house after his morning run and her spine goes rigid. Without even looking up, Charlie threads her fingers through Paige's and runs a soothing thumb across the back of her hand.

The look on her face must be pretty awful because when Charlie sees it, she drops her magazine and uses their connected hands to pull her out of her chair and down onto the towel next to her. Paige buries her feet in the sand and leans back to feel the sun on her face, breathing slowly.

"It really hurt, huh?" Charlie guesses. "That he wouldn't back you up. More than it would have if it was any of us."

She sputters denials and excuses at the same time, until Charlie starts laughing and lays back, only her legs left on the towel. "I forgot you thought you were being sneaky," she says, still chuckling.

Paige shrugs and uses her feet to pile sand onto Charlie's toes. Charlie sits up on her forearms and smiles softly. "He went to bat for you this morning, you know."

"Huh?"

"Yeah." Charlie pulls herself up the rest of the way and scrubs her hands across her face. "The rest of us have been kind of…apprehensive about you taking over surveillance on the warehouse today."

"What?" Any relaxing that she may have done earlier is gone now.

"We know how much you care about those girls," she says bracingly. "And we're just concerned that if you got the chance-"

"You think I would go back in," Paige says, working very hard to sound offended when she knows that she had that very plan the night before. Almost went through with it too, except… "Is that why I haven't been able to find any car keys?"

Charlie levels her with a suspicious stare. "Why were you looking?"

"And why Johnny insisted on coming with me on my run last night?"

"Thought you'd be slower with your bum knee," she chuckles. "But that's beside the point. Mike said it was too important to you to let someone else do it."

The thought is enough to make the guilt come screaming back and slam into her chest. Suddenly the thought of sitting on the _beach_ of all places while Lena must be so terrified…she tries to scramble to her feet but Charlie grabs her arms and yanks her back down, using her thumb to wipe at something on her face. Paige realizes in shock that she must be crying, as Charlie pulls her head down to rest on her shoulder. She watches as her tears soak dark spots into the fabric of Charlie's shirt and forces her eyes shut.

"Shhhh," Charlie hums, swaying slightly. "We're gonna help them. I promise."

They've miscalculated how far the water would come up during high tide, and it start to lick at their feet. Soon, it will soak their bag and towel and they'll have to move back or leave. But Paige doesn't think about that, or her girls, or how she should warn Charlie not to make promises like that because it hurts too much when you can't keep them. She would know. Instead, she lets Charlie comfort her while the ocean sticks sand to their legs and thinks that this must be how Lena felt when she finally saw her in that warehouse for the first time. A little uncertain, but somehow safe.


	11. Mobile (BriggsCharlie)

**Mobile**

Somehow he's been assigned to pick up their new roommate at the airport and get her settled in. How this happened, he's not exactly sure because he's been told he makes a terrible welcome wagon, a title he lives up to by not picking her up at baggage claim like he's supposed to. He figures if this Agent DeMarco is going to be one of them, she at least has to be able to navigate the parking lot.

He looks down at his phone and when he looks back up, he nearly startles. A woman has hoisted herself into the jeep without opening the door and dropped down into the seat. "Ma'am?"

"You look like a cop," she decides after a second, tossing her bag in the back seat.

"Catherine DeMarco," he guesses when he realizes it, frowning that she managed to get the drop on him. "And my job kind of depends on me not looking like a cop."

She shrugs. "Then you should get a new one."

While he doesn't dislike her, he feels like he probably should. He waits for her to say something else, maybe something polite, but she seems pretty satisfied with what she's put on the table so far.

"Okay, Catherine," he sighs.

"Charlie."

"Okay, Chuck," he corrects. "Let's get you home."

He pulls out of the parking lot and onto the freeway, carefully because the gas pedal tends to stick if he picks up too much speed, too fast. Of course, Charlie notices. "Your car's a piece of shit," she laughs, shaking her head and squinting into the sunlight.

"We should find you some shades," he says conversationally, choosing to ignore the crack about his car. "If you're gonna stick around and be a sunny California girl."

He almost swerves them off the road when he feels her hands between his eyes, sliding his sunglasses off and popping them on her face. She lifts them up long enough to wink at him before letting them drop back into place.

"Found some."

He lets her keep them.

—

They're both still bruised and broken that night when she asks if he wants to go for a drive, hoping for some time away from their roommates' well intentioned concern. Mike packed his things and left that morning, and they're not exactly sure how they're feeling about it. They aren't sure how to feel about each other either, which is worse than it used to be but not entirely new. Things have always been kind of in the gray area for them. Comfortable, but damned confusing too.

No one's on the beach that late at night, so he drives onto the sand, all the way down to the where the water splashes against the back tires, and parks.

"You planning on drowning the thing? Put it out of its misery?" Charlie asks, toeing her shoes off and jumping out onto the sand. He waits in the car while she wades out even further until she's submerged up to her knees and soaked even higher from the waves. For a second, he considers joining her, but decides against it, knowing she'll make her way back to him eventually.

When she turns, her face is all busted up, the saltwater is sticking her shorts to her thighs, and _Jesus,_ he shouldn't even be allowed to look at her after everything he's done. He doesn't deserve that much.

She jumps up on the hood of the jeep, and instead of making a joke about watching the paint job, he climbs up next to her and slides back to where she's resting against the windshield, tucking her under his arm.

"I'm sorry," she chokes for the millionth time, and it hurts so badly that he thinks he can physically feel it in his chest.

He wants to tell her not to be, that he's sorry, or warn her that she should run as fast as she can in the opposite direction. But when he opens his mouth, what comes out is, "It could work."

"Hmm?"

"If we didn't think about absolutely anything but us and how we feel," he explains, "it would work."

Slowly, she moves her head to his chest and leaves it there as the waves get rougher and crash up onto the hood, splashing at their legs. They don't move, don't _care_. And Briggs has a hard time feeling guilty for anything that led to this.

It's been a long day, working upstate with a taskforce that took all the credit for _their_ results, and Paul is starting to think they should have sprung for a motel for the night. The others are asleep in the back, looking like a line of half toppled dominos, Johnny with his head practically in Paige's lap, Paige resting on Jakes's shoulder, and Jakes's head lolling back and forth on the headrest. Charlie is still awake, turned in her seat smiling fondly at their coworkers.

"Think they're really sleeping?"

It would appear so, but if there was ever a person who would fake it in order to eavesdrop, it would be one of the ones in this car. He turns to check.

Johnny is snoring, which he denies doing when he's awake, so he's probably out. And Paige only rubs the side of her nose like that when she's asleep. Admittedly, Jakes doesn't have a tell, but he would also pay good money _not_ to listen to them if sleeping was an option.

"They're out," he confirms. Charlie grins and threads her fingers through his. She looks out the window for a second, but then looks back at him, beaming so widely that he's sure it must hurt.

"What?" he asks, chuckling. She shakes her head. _"What?"_

"Would you calm down?" she hisses. "You're gonna wake them."

"Then tell me what you're so happy about."

"Nothing," she admits. "Not really. Things are just…really good right now."

He couldn't agree more.

It figures the first time the jeep breaks down completely, Charlie would be with him. She's hopping mad too, considering it's one of the hottest days of the year and they're miles away from home.

"I told you this car was a piece of shit," she growls, throwing her hair into a messy ponytail and securing it with the sunglasses she stole from him that first time in the airport parking lot. "I've been saying it for years."

He nods. "You were right," he says, not meaning it in the slightest.

Charlie narrows her eyes. "Don't placate me. Agree with me because you want to, not because I told you to."

"Should I want to agree because I want to or because you told me to?"

Uh oh, he knows that look. She might actually hit him. Preemptively, he cups her face in his hands and trails kisses down her cheeks. When he reaches the corner of her mouth, he pauses and waits for permission. She shrugs, and he sighs.

He slams the hood of the jeep down and gestures for her to climb up. Charlie rolls her eyes but humors him, testing the metal with her fingers first so she doesn't burn her thighs. Standing between her spread legs, with her arms around her his neck, he nuzzles her collarbone until she smiles and hums contentedly.

"What makes you think this wasn't all part of my plan?" he asks. "Stranded on side of the road with a beautiful woman? Things aren't shaping up too badly for me, Chuck."

"Kiss ass," she accuses, leaning in to give him what he wanted earlier. Her breath is hot against his, but he hardly cares about the heat anymore or even about the fact that they're on the side of the road, with dozens of cars flying past. Someone honks their horn, and Charlie flips them off without breaking their kiss. Paul smiles against her mouth.

"We've completely ruined any chance of someone stopping to help us, you know," she murmurs, sweat pouring down the back of her neck.

"So we'll stay here for the rest of our lives." He shrugs.

They climb in the back seat and wait for the tow truck, her legs in his lap and head on his shoulder.

"Think it's really dead this time?" she asks, nodding at the dashboard.

"Could be."

Charlie grins. "Too bad. I was finally starting to warm up to it."


	12. Oxygen (CharlieBriggs)

**Oxygen**

Paul dreams of smoke. In his eyes and in his chest. Winding in tendrils around his lungs until he chokes. Pouring from the lid of Lisa's casket and from the end of Charlie's cigarette, eventually becoming so thick that he can't see her through the haze. He tries to grab for her, to call her name, but there's smoke in this throat and jangling keys in his ears, and Charlie slips further away.

His eyes fly open and immediately start to sting. There's pressure on his chest, heat on his skin, and his first thought is that Charlie is on top of him. But when he goes to move her, he realizes she's tucked against his side instead. Paul takes a breath and freezes.

There's smoke in the room.

Once his eyes adjust to the dark, he can see it hovering over them, and he tries to wake himself again. Except this is happening, and he realizes in a few panicked seconds that he can't stop it.

"Charlie," he whispers before realizing that now isn't the time to be quiet. "Charlie! Baby, we have to go."

He's on his feet, practically dragging her behind him when she finally wakes up completely and demands to know what's going on. "Fire," he explains, coughing into his arm and feeling the door before he throws it open.

Charlie starts, instantly alert. " _Jesus Christ_. Everybody out!" she yells.

It sounds awful, but he completely forgot that there was anyone besides the two of them in the house. "Go!" he shouts, pointing towards the stairs. "I'll get them!"

She ignores him and races to the end of the hall. "Charlie!"

"Like hell, Paul Briggs!"

The likelihood of her actually listening to him is pretty dismal, so he opens Johnny's door and shouts for him to get up and get out. While Johnny's still processing, Jakes comes out of the room behind him, hunched over and coughing.

"Take him," he orders, spotting Charlie pounding at Paige's door. He helps Johnny get Jakes's arm over his shoulder before running to help Charlie, passing the door to Mike's empty room hanging open on the way.

Charlie is wrenching the doorknob and kicking at the door. "Lovebirds!" she yells. "I hate to interrupt your post-coital bliss with our emergency, but open the freakin' door!"

She would sound stern if she didn't sound so terrified. He nudges her out of the way and steps back to kick the door in, but the smoke is starting to get to him, and there isn't enough oxygen in his muscles to put any real force behind his kicks. From behind him, Charlie comes swooping in with the hall lamp, which she uses to smash the glass in the door so she can reach in and unlock it from the inside. In the hall, Jakes is coughing more heavily, nearly on his knees with Johnny struggling to pull him up.

"Oh my god!" Paul whirls at Charlie's voice, running after her when he sees Paige lying motionless on the bed, Mike kneeling over her and looking stunned.

"Mike, come on." The smoke is thicker in here, and Briggs covers his mouth with his arm. "Mike!"

Mike doesn't answer. Charlie shoves him towards the door and leans to press an ear against Paige's chest.

"She won't wake up," he says, stumbling towards him, visibly disoriented. "She-Why won't she wake up?"

He grabs him by the shoulder and pulls him out into the hall. "Go help Johnny with Jakes!"

"But-"

"Mike, go!" Paul yells. "Charlie and I have her!"

They've already been in here too long, so he's relieved when Mike listens to orders for once in his life and runs to help Dale down the stairs. Charlie's wet a face towel from the pitcher on the nightstand and draped it over Paige's mouth and nose. But even after pulling her upright and gently slapping her cheeks, she doesn't open her eyes.

Charlie heaves and falls out of her crouch onto her ass, where she takes a second to cough and clear her lungs before she reaches to help him secure Paige over his shoulder. He groans as he stands and leans on Charlie for balance as they stumble slowly down the stairs, Paul torn between being extra careful to not knock Paige's head against anything and getting them all out of there as quickly as possible.

Outside, the temperature drops what feels like a hundred degrees, and they scramble down the beach to where the others are standing at the water's edge. Paul lowers Paige to the sand, where Mike is waiting to prop her against his shoulder, and grabs Charlie in his arms, holding her tightly against his chest.

From their position on the beach, they can see the flames flickering up from garage and hear sirens in the distance. Paige stirs as Mike cups handfuls of cool ocean water to her cheeks. Jakes is standing on his own again, threatening to wrestle Johnny into the Pacific if he doesn't ease up with the "I saved your life" humor. And Charlie grabs his face with that steely look in her eye and kisses him hard enough that he falls back in the sand. She crawls on top of him to kiss him again, and the others give them a hard time, until she glares them into submission.

Paul can't help but wish things could have turned out like this the first time.

Later that night, in their very own motel room, with a room full of housemates on either side of them, Paul dreams of air. In his lungs and in his heart. Running smoothly through his system and letting him _breathe_. Because the Estate burned, but Graceland is standing tall with "minor surface damage" to the garage. Because they've had to bang on the walls twice in the last hour to get the others to quiet down because their roommates are loud, and obnoxious, and _alive_.

Because Lisa was smoke, but Charlie is oxygen and he can't get enough of it.


	13. Gravity (All)

**Gravity**

Charlie runs because she is done.

She can't take it anymore. They put these rookies and agents that have never seen a day of undercover before in their lives into _her_ house and expect her to watch as things go up in flames. She pretends not to get attached but then they're there, with their bedhead and eager faces and giggling over the bonfire, and of course she damn well gets attached. So she's done. Done watching them get hurt, done watching them break down, and _done_ watching them die.

She's seen it before, and the same thing will happen to this Warren kid. But this time, she won't be there to witness it. The papers are printed but not signed, and there's a nice life waiting for her where she can still work undercover but only worry about herself for once in her freaking life.

At least that's the dream until Jakes catches up to her and tells her about what's going on at home. This Levi kid is going after Bello and making puppy eyes at Paige (who's making them right back) and neither of those things can be allowed to continue without her supervision. So she goes back. Because for their sake, she can't be done. What in god's name would they do without her?

Johnny doesn't make it past the front door.

After Dales's disastrous birthday party, he's hurt and angry and kind of embarrassed because clearly these people don't think of him the same way he thinks of them. But when he opens the door to go to his mom's for the night, Paige is standing there, waiting.

She leads him all the way to her room, dragging him by the ear for the last few feet. (And he follows closely because _damn_ those nails of hers are like claws.) She sits him down, facing the wall that's covered with photos of her friends and relatives, and demands that he find every picture of himself in her room (all twelve of them) and _still_ tell her that he really thinks they don't believe in this family just as much as he does. Even when they can't admit it.

It takes him a while to find the last one – tucked in the book on her nightstand. In it, he and Paige are on either side of Jakes, pressing kisses to his cheeks in retaliation for whatever curmudgeonly thing he'd done that day. It was taken seconds before he tackled them to the ground and they had to yell for Charlie to intervene.

Johnny grins. He'll stay, he promises. As long as he gets a copy of that picture.

Jakes leaves because why the hell not?

They don't need him anymore, not with hotshot DC boy there to run the show. Except, it's not even really about Mike, and he knows it.

He had this training officer in his first days at ICE who was as rough as they come. No family, no kids, and he always reeked of scotch and sick. Back in the day, he and his buddies would nudge each other whenever he entered a room and swear up and down that they'd never end up like that. But here he is. Cassandra hates him, he'll never see his son again, the people who he live with were fine and dandy with him being voted off the goddamn island. And he's clutching a flask of whiskey in his hand, contemplating a 10:00 AM nightcap before he crashes in his brand new, empty apartment.

Might have done it too, except Warren calls and sheepishly admits he's been trying to tail these Solano affiliates all week and they keep making him and taking off. (The kid used binoculars. _Really?_ ) So now he has to go teach surveillance for dummies and keep the kid from getting himself _dead_.

So maybe they do still need him around.

A week after Mike leaves, Paige bolts too.

She's pretty slick about it if she does say so herself. Packs her things while the others are sleeping and slips a request for transfer form under Paul's door. But when she pulls into her brother's house the next morning, Johnny is on the trampoline with her niece and nephews and Briggs is sitting on the front step waiting for her.

 _Shit_.

When she sits down next to him, she has this whole excuse prepared, which Paul promptly shuts down because he knows exactly what's going on in her head. He's already explained that he isn't angry that she kept Mike's secret from him, but guilt's a bitch, so he tells her again. Assures her he wouldn't have wanted her to do anything differently, tells her about tearing up the transfer request the second he saw it, and teases her about what Charlie's going to do when she gets her hands on her.

It's tough to argue, so she doesn't. Instead, they collect Johnny from his three newest adoring fans, and she kisses her family goodbye, hops in the jeep (in the back because Johnny insists that people who run out on them in the middle of the night do not get to call shotgun), and lets her boys drive her home.

Paul can't run without Charlie. And Charlie doesn't seem to be budging.

Probably he's deluded, but he thinks he could live a normal life if he had to. As long as he had Charlie with him. Once, on a whim, he goes looking for apartments in the area. Out of the house, but close enough that he could check in on those knuckleheads every day and step in if he had to. He's just looking, but when the real estate agent tells him his wife is waiting for him in the next apartment, he knows he's in trouble.

Surprisingly, Charlie doesn't yell. She doesn't look happy, but she tells him that if this is what he needs, she'd be willing to humor him until he comes to his senses. And she'd do it, too. He hasn't done a damn thing to deserve it, but she'd follow him to the gates of hell and kick his ass for whatever he did to put them there.

He can't put her through it, though. One look at her face tells him that this isn't what she wants. She'd be miserable like this. Probably he would too, but since life's been rough at Graceland lately, he'd like to think there's something better out there. That he still has options.

But he knows Charlie will make the sacrifice if he asks her to. So he won't ask her.

Mike runs all the way to DC.

Mostly because it's easier that way. Things are black and white in DC, and after months of swimming in the gray area, he can tell you it's the scariest place you'll ever be. Also the greatest, but he can't think about that.

Graceland was good. Nice. But it was like a dream and it won't last forever. If it has to end (and it does), he'd rather it be on his terms. So he'd better make a run for it before it comes crashing down on his head. Besides, it's easier to pretend that Briggs was just a decent agent, Paige was just a pretty girl, and Graceland was just a damn house than to think about the truth.

But then Briggs calls, and it all comes rushing back. Briggs is a damn good training officer who he wants to be half as talented as some day. Paige is… _everything_. And Graceland is a hell of a lot more than a house.

So he runs back home.


	14. For Three (Charlie and Paige)

**For Three**

She's not stupid enough to turn down a drink at the Drop when she knows she's never said no to one before. (Not something she's ashamed of, just a fact.) So she lets Paul buy her a beer and leaves it sitting full on the table while she tries to figure out a subtle way to take it with her to the bathroom to pour it out.

This is sort of what she does for a living, so she's not too panicked, but she's also well aware that her coworkers are insanely observant federal agents, leaving little room for error. It won't be long before a full bottle on the table attracts unwanted attention and she'll have to invent the cover story to end all cover stories.

Carefully, she scans the faces of her housemates looking for signs that they're on to her, but the coast seems clear until she gets to Paige, who is tilting her head, looking at her oddly. Unintentionally, Charlie's eyes steal a panicked glance at her drink, and when they're pulled back up to Paige's face, she knows she's been caught.

She's fully expecting this to become a big deal, but instead of asking questions or making the announcement, Paige just nods solemnly, drains the rest of her beer, and discreetly holds the bottle under the table for Charlie to take.

Charlie makes the switch, smiling and shaking her head when Paige takes a few gulps out of that one too. She's almost ready to sigh in relief when Paul notices her empty bottle and goes for a new one, while Johnny starts talking up this new shot menu that they _all_ have to try.

Paige blanches, and Charlie frowns apologetically.

She's going to owe that girl free drinks for the rest of her life.

She slips out from under Paul's arm and into the hall when the nausea kicks in the next morning. Any more of this, and he's definitely going to know something's up. They both love to sleep in, but lately she hasn't been able to make it past six without waking up queasy. She flicks the bathroom light on and narrowly avoids tripping over Paige, who's sprawled out on the bathroom floor, head resting on a folded towel.

Charlie winces and gently prods her with her toe.

"Ugh!" Paige moans, crossing her arms over her eyes. "Turn it off!"

It's still too dark to turn them all the way out, but she adjusts the dimmer to the lowest setting, and the lights fade into something more bearable. "Better?"

Paige mumbles something into the towel that might be affirmative. Her stomach flips again, and Charlie's reminded of why she's there, scrambling over Paige's tangled limbs towards the toilet. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees that her own retching has set Paige off, and she's now bent over the trash can, looking sickly pale in the low light.

She flushes and pulls herself to her feet, wobbling as she retrieves two wash cloths from the cabinet, wets them and hands one to Paige before clapping the other to her own forehead and sinking down onto the floor.

It's going to be a long morning.

When the sun comes up, they're both laying on spread towels, with their cheeks pressed against the cool tile and a trash can within reach. The light must aggravate Paige's headache because her face twists in pain as she struggles to pull herself up to lean on one elbow. "You have to tell him," she groans. "I can't do this again. I'll die, Charlie. I'll actually die."

If memory serves her correctly, this is only half the hangover Paige had the morning after her birthday last year, but she did really come through for her last night, so Charlie doesn't bring it up. "I know. And I will," Charlie concedes. "I think he's already suspicious after you told him that you were drinking for three last night."

"Three?"

"I don't know." She laughs and scrubs a hand over her closed eyes. "You, me, and the baby, I guess."

Oh wow. She hasn't actually used that word since she started to something was off, and it startles her into sitting up. A _baby_.

Paige looks equally stunned. "Do you know what you're going to do?" she asks hesitantly.

"No," Charlie says, shaking her head and chuckling a little hysterically. "Not a damn clue."

Helplessly, Paige watches as she laughs harder and harder, until she's heaving from lack of oxygen and it's clear that nothing is funny. After two failed attempts to get up off the floor and go to her, Paige grabs ahold of Charlie's towel and drags it towards her, pulling Charlie with it. It must have looked ridiculous and it makes her laugh even harder.

"You'd be a good mom."

The words knock the air out of her stomach, and she starts to feel queasy again. "You think so?" she asks quietly.

"Yeah, of course. Well," Paige shrugs. "Then again, you did let me nearly drink myself into a coma last night. So, I don't know, you could really suck."

For some reason, that's oddly comforting.

All it takes is a few minutes of quiet for Paige to fall back asleep, propped against the sink. When she does, Charlie gets up and locks the door before she sits back down on the towel. Curiously, she lifts up the hem of her tank top and pokes at her stomach before realizing how stupid she must look and yanking her hand away.

Like clockwork, her nausea disappears by nine, and Charlie gently pulls Paige's head into her lap because it doesn't feel right to leave her laying there considering she was a proud sponsor of this particular hangover . When Paul comes in to brush his teeth, he smiles at the both of them and kisses Charlie's head.

"The two of you hit it a little too hard last night?"

For a second, she forgets about Paige and thinks he's talking about…well…the two of _them_.

It doesn't feel as wrong as she thought it would.


	15. Okay (CharlieBriggs)

**Okay**

She knows she's been caught when she feels him at the nape of her neck, holding her sweaty hair back and slipping his other hand under her shirt to rub circles against her bare back. Every morning before this, she's been able to slip out unnoticed, but something must have gone wrong this time because Paul is _here_ and muttering something that would probably be comforting if she could calm down enough to listen as she finishes off her latest bout of morning sickness.

When she's done, she rinses her mouth out and lets him wet his hands with cool water and run them over her face. It leaves her skin feeling damp and cool, and she wishes he could have been there every other morning this week to do the exact same thing.

He pushes her hair out of her eyes and strokes his thumb along the line of her cheekbone, pressing his cheek to her forehead. "You're not warm."

"No," Charlie agrees, resting against his chest. She knows she doesn't have a fever, but her face is starting to flush from the feeling of his eyes on her. He's uncomfortably close to what has become her own little secret over the past few days, and thought of him digging any deeper is making her heart beat faster. Why is she putting herself through this when she can just tell him and get it off her chest?

She clears her throat and pushes away, resting her hands on the back of her neck. "I'm fine," she says, breathing deeply. "I'm good. Let's just…um, let's go back to bed."

"You're sure?"

Without looking at him, she nods and takes off down the hall, probably walking too quickly to possibly pass as casual in her haste to get _out of there_. Briggs follows and waits for her to climb into bed before frowning and feeling her face again. "Just take it easy. I'm gonna go raid the medicine cabinet."

It's the concern that undoes her because she's not keeping this secret to make him _more_ stressed. "Wait," she sighs, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and dropping her head into her hands. "Stop. I'm not sick."

Paul snorts. "Babe, I gotta tell ya, you were not looking like the picture of perfect health back there."

"No, I mean…" She groans and flops back on the bed, hiding her face in her hands. She needs to take a second to regroup because this is moving too fast and she's not sure if she's screwing it up because she's doing it wrong or because there is just no good way to do this. "Okay," Charlie says bracingly. " _Okay_. We have to talk."

Briggs sits down next to her, looking more disturbed than ever. "Talk to me, Chuck. What's going on?"

The need for some kind of movement overtakes her, and she stands up to pace. "Okay," she sighs. "Okay. Don't like freak out or anything. Okay? Just don't."

"You're saying 'okay' a lot," Paul points out, reaching out to catch her hand in his. "And you know there's nothing you can't tell me, right?"

He reaches up to rest his hand on her cheek, and for a second she panics because there's no turning back now, no way to avoid this, and she's not even sure how to say it. She's kind of been thinking about this is in vague, abstract ideas, and she's never forced herself to put it into words before.

"I've been puking my guts out every morning this week," she admits, which isn't exactly how she wanted to say it, but it's out there now.

Briggs blinks, looking confused. He's maybe not getting this. He's a federal agent, how is he not getting this?

Shrugging, she trudges on, watching his face for some insight into what's going on in that head of his. "I mean, I didn't take a test or anything, but…I just _know_."

Paul's eye widen, and he lets go of her, letting his hands drop to his sides. Her cheek feels cold and clammy, and she wishes he would put his hand back. "You're serious?"

"As a heart attack." She sucks her lips against her teeth, stone faced.

"You're-?"

She nods.

"Alright." He nods, not meeting her eyes but instead staring stunned at her stomach. "Alright."

"Paul…"

He swallows. "Alright."

"Now you're doing it," Charlie snaps. "Can't you say anything that's not 'alright'?"

"Alri-" Catching himself, he stops. Then stands. Then sits back down.

"You're freaking out," she accuses. "Paul Briggs, you do not get to panic on me!"

When he doesn't respond, she snaps her fingers and straddles his lap, catching his face in her hands and tilting his head back to force him to look at her. "Listen to me, I am already freaking the fuck out, so you need to be as cool as a goddamned cucumber, I swear to god, Paul! Aren't you supposed to be _Zen_ or something? Because I-"

His mouth covers hers, and she almost chokes on her words. He trails kisses from her mouth to her ear, and where he stops, he rests his head on hers, pressing her against his shoulder. "Okay," he chuckles. "It's okay. I'll be Zen. We'll be Zen together."

"I don't have to be Zen," she complains, breathing easier now that he's talking to her, even if he doesn't seem to be grasping the severity of this situation. "I'm the one that's…"

"Pregnant," he finishes, sounding kind of dazed.

"Don't say that," she scolds. That's a very strong word that she's not quite ready to use. Not in relation to herself, anyway.

"What, pregnant?"

"Stop! Did I not just tell you to stop? What, are you hard of hearing now?"

His chest rumbles, and she really can't believe that he's laughing right now. Resting her forehead against his, Charlie takes a hard look at him, dumbfounded when she realizes that he's genuinely not upset. "Yeah, laugh it up. We don't have a place to live and we both spend at least sixty hours a week working, which pretty much guarantees we're going to screw this up, but you just keep laughing."

Paul smiles against her neck. "Are _you_ freaking out now?"

"I'm allowed to, I'm-"

"Pregnant?"

"I'll shoot you," she promises. "I'll shoot you and raise this kid alone."

He holds onto her shoulders and lets them both fall back onto the pillows, so they're laying side by side. Breath hot against her ear, Briggs smiles and runs his hands under her shirt, settling them against the small of her back. It's been aching for the past few days, and she's not sure if it's the old injury acting up or some new… _expecting_ thing that she's supposed to know about. Either way, his fingers work at the knot that he should have no way of knowing exists, and she nearly moans in relief.

"One, who says they're throwing us out of here?" Paul murmurs into her shoulder. "It's gonna be years before the kid can spill FBI secrets, so it's none of their damn business."

Charlie hums, not sure if she agrees with that, but too relaxed by what his hands are doing to her back to say anything. "And two, there's four adults in this house that I'm technically the boss of and you _terrify_ when you want to. We'll delegate case work and demand free babysitting. Problem solved."

"Got it all worked out, do you? Wipe that damned smirk off your face." _Smug bastard._

She props herself up on one elbow and frowns. "You really aren't worried about this?"

Paul shrugs. "What can I say, Chuck? Little more of you in the world. What could be so bad about that?"

It's only a quarter till seven now, so they crawl back under the covers and resolve to sleep in and hide up here until the others leave for the day and they get the house to themselves. Charlie's tired now that she's relaxed and doesn't feel as queasy, and she feels herself drifting.

Paul's still awake, slowly stroking her back and side, probably thinking she won't notice the way his hand lingers near her stomach.

Charlie smiles. _Okay_.


	16. Clutter (All)

**Clutter**

It's really not their fault. They're adults, and by now, they're all used to having their own living spaces with plenty of room for the kind of things that adults accumulate over their lifetimes. And now they're squeezed into one room, so there is admittedly some…stuff that they don't have a place for.

Originally, it was just one or two things that they stashed in Lauren's room after she left. Freeing up some space in their own rooms or the garage, or moving some things that they're more attached to out of their storage units and closer to home. But things got kind of out of hand, and now the door doesn't open like a door should.

Jakes holds it open as far as it will go as Briggs leans in through the crack and does some strategic kicking to free up space for the door to swing open. The others stand back, shuffling guiltily. There's a minor avalanche when the door's not there to hold back the onslaught, and they end up stepping over stray shoeboxes and footballs that slide out into the hall.

Paige manages to crawl over the junk onto an empty spot on the bed and shakes off a towel that got tangled around her ankle. "This is… _shameful_."

There's some general nodding in agreement as the others try to find a place to stand. She curiously opens the nightstand drawer and pulls a game controller out of the mess of wires stashed there. "We used to play video games. Why don't we play video games anymore?"

"Because I kicked Johnny's ass and he got pissed off," Charlie explains, using Paul's shoulder to steady herself as she climbs onto the couch.

Taking a running leap, Johnny lands next to Paige on the bed and nearly bounces her off. "That's not…no. Okay? That's not what happened. Paul, man, you were there."

"Sorry, John boy. The lady handed you your ass on a fine silver platter." Briggs admits, settling in next to Charlie and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "I'm not saying she didn't play dirty, but she won dirty, too."

The mess looks a little more monumental now that they're submerged in it, and suddenly this seems like it's going to be an impossible task. They should be cleaning, but what they're actually doing is picking things up and putting them back where they got them.

Charlie whistles for their attention. "We'll take this side of the bed, you two take the other side. Dale, make a path so we can get the hell out of here."

"Hey, my lamp!" Johnny yells, and the others flinch, knowing exactly what he's found. "I thought it was busted?"

Exchanging a guilty glance, Charlie and Paige try to look as innocent as possible. For the sake of the house, they'd hidden it in the garage a while back, and told him it got knocked off the table in an unfortunate football accident.

 _They should have just broken the damn thing._

"We lied," Jakes says frankly. "It's the ugliest thing any of us have ever seen, and we didn't want to have to look at it anymore."

Johnny is stunned, holding the lamp to his heart, looking wounded. "You never let it live up to its full potential!" he insists. "See you put the fish in here-"

"No fish!" Charlie scolds. She leans out from behind the surfboard she's moving to level him with a stern stare and a pointed finger. "Not after what you did to the last ones!"

"You said that wasn't our fault!" Paige yells, looking horrified. Sitting down next to her, Johnny gapes at Charlie like he genuinely doesn't know what she's talking about.

"Way to go, Chuck," Paul murmurs because they decided a long time ago to spare their feelings and tell them that they must have gotten a bad batch at the pet store.

Charlie rolls her eyes. "You can't feed fish four times a day, no matter how hungry they look. You're both adults, you should have known that. I'm surprised the poor things didn't explode."

Their faces fall, and for a second, she feels guilty. They didn't mean to, and she remembers them being sincerely broken up when their pets started dying off one by one. Then she remembers that they're grown ass federal agents crying over fish and gets back to work with a clear conscience.

"We killed them!" Paige hisses, dismayed.

Johnny pats her back. "Don't listen to her, mama. We just loved them too much."

Charlie sighs.

They really try their hardest to put everything in order, but none of them really gels with the straight-laced, organized kind of lifestyle. The only one that does is Mike, and since he didn't make the mess, he's refusing to help clean it up. He pokes his head in once to gloat, but Jakes whips a shoe at his head, and he sulks back into the hallway.

The first fight starts over Paul's filing cabinet. They're closed case files, and they've been digitized and backed up with paper copies at headquarters, so it's really unnecessary to keep a second set here. But Briggs insists he might need his original case notes someday.

"There's a phone number on the back of this one that's labelled 'guy with the hat'," Charlie points out.

Paul shrugs. "What if I need to call the guy with the hat?"

"What if the guy takes the hat off?" Paige asks. "Who is he then?"

The filing cabinet goes.

Next, it's a trunk that belongs to Charlie that no one is allowed to open. She refuses to answer any questions and drags it out to store in her room, leaving the others to be eaten alive by their curiosity.

"Yeah, we need to know what's in there," Jakes decides as soon as she's gone. They're sure that Briggs must know, but he's being unreasonably tight-lipped.

"Just tell me it's not a body," Johnny stresses.

Paul details the weaknesses in a plan involving hiding a dead body in a poorly sealed trunk, especially in a house of federal agents.

"Why couldn't you just say she'd never have to hide a body?" Johnny demands. "Why wouldn't you just say that?"

The trunk (unfortunately) stays.

Jakes unearths Paige's turntables, and the whole room groans, while her eyes light up. She hasn't seen them since she stopped moonlighting at the Drop as often as she used to, and seeing them now brings back the urge to practice again.

"I was good," she cries, when she sees their disheartened expressions.

"You were," Jakes agrees. "You were also loud and _nonstop_."

"It was like a dog whistle," Charlie muses. "You would start and it would draw every degenerate teenager in the freaking neighborhood off the street to our front door."

The turntables stay on the condition that they're kept in an undisclosed location until the entire house agrees to put up with them for short, defined periods of time.

There are two bikes propped up against the window that no one will claim until Johnny and Paige reluctantly admit to buying them last year because they 'thought they might be the kind of people who could ride their bikes to work'.

"We weren't," Paige acknowledges.

Johnny shrugs. "Who knew?"

Briggs, Jakes, and Charlie stop what they're doing and raise their hands. They knew.

The bikes go.

As they're moving them down to the garage, Johnny lowers his voice so only Paige can hear. "Think we could ride them down the stairs?"

"You could," Paige suggests. "And I could record it with my phone."

When they're gone, Paul turns to Charlie, who's sorting through a box of old cover outfits, looking for anything salvageable. "I can't believe you told them about the fish."

She snorts. "I can't believe you replaced the fish after the first round died."

Frowning, he puts a hand on her wrist to stop her folding. "I thought you did that."

They both turn to Jakes, who groans and runs his hands over his face. "They were ridiculously attached to the stupid fish. I didn't want to hear them whining about it."

Briggs and Charlie, wearing matching smirks, execute a perfectly timed, simultaneous, " _Awww_!"

Dale flips them off.

"I'm glad we kept you," Charlie says, laughing. "It'll be good to have Zelanski back, but if we had to have one, I'm glad it was you."

"Wait, is that why we're doing this?" Paige asks, leaning against the doorframe, next to Johnny, who's holding his wrist protectively against his chest. "So Bates could move back in?"

"That's the idea," Briggs confirms. "Is that a problem?"

Paige shrugs. "Last I heard, he transferred to Texas and now he's the head sniper for some task force based there. You could ask him, but…um…"

She trails off and the others still and survey their (albeit minimal) progress.

"So…" Johnny whistles, rubbing his injured wrist. "Move it all back in?"

Again, the Graceland agents aren't necessarily proud of what happened to Lauren's room.


	17. Qualified (All)

**Qualified**

When Paul calls and asks him to meet him at the surveillance van, this is not what he expected.

"You brought an infant on a surveillance op?" Mike asks, closing the door behind him. "What happens if you have to intervene?"

Paul shrugs. "I figured I'd call you, say I needed your help, and then leave you here with the kid."

So he does.

Mike blinks. _What just happened?_

It's not that he's not good with kids. Or doesn't like them. It's just that…

"This is very unprofessional," he explains, picking up the car seat and balancing it in his lap.

The baby giggles.

Mike shakes his head. "It's not funny actually."

Laughing harder, Anthony mimics his motion, whipping his own head back and forth. Mike winces, gently stabilizing his head with his fingers so he doesn't hurt his neck. "Easy, bud," he says softly. "Last thing I need is you getting whiplash on my watch."

Tony starts to fuss, and Mike winces and tries to navigate the web of straps keeping him secured in his seat. "You want out of that crazy thing?"

"Come here," he groans, pulling him out and propping him up on his shoulder.

He settles the baby on his knees just as Briggs appears on the screen. Tony claps and points.

"Yeah, you know him, huh?" Mike mutters, eyes catching on the notes Briggs left next his laptop.

A few minutes later, while he's trying to decipher the chicken scratch code that Paul writes in, a piercing cry shatters his concentration. "What?" he asks panicked.

On the screen, a fight has broken out, and Paul is ramming his fists into some guy's eye socket.

"Oh! No, no!" Mike leaps to his feet and turns Tony's face away from the carnage. "Everything's fine!"

Charlie's gonna kill him.

" _Pleeease_ , Charlie?"

"No, Johnny…"

"Come on," he groans. "I'm like, the best babysitter ever."

She rolls her eyes, closing the last snap on Tony's sleeper. "They give you a trophy for that?"

"Are you seriously tryin to tell me you're not tired? You fell asleep at the table this morning."

Wincing, she gestures for Johnny take the baby, and smiles when he holds him above his head to make silly faces at him. "Saw that, did you?"

"Charlie, baby, toast stuck to your forehead."

"Fine," Charlie sighs. "But stay out of the ocean."

Fifteen minutes and half a bottle of sunscreen later, Johnny sits down at the water's edge, and props Tony up next him. He gently places a pair of sunglasses identical to his own over the baby's eyes and grins.

"See? This is fun, yeah?"

He fills a bucket with water and scoops a few handfuls of sand into it, using the mixture to trickle dribble castles over the baby's toes. Tony giggles and kicks his legs, sending sand flying.

"There you go!" Johnny laughs. "Get it, little dude!"

They make a good pair because Johnny enjoys piling the sand up into towers and Tony delights in knocking them down. But Johnny can only be content in the sand for so long.

Checking over his shoulder to make sure Charlie hasn't wandered down to join them, he carefully sets the baby up on his feet, holding him under the arms because he hasn't mastered the art of standing just yet.

"You want to take a little swim?" he offers, walking on his knees until they're surrounded by water.

Tony splashes and babbles when the water laps at his thighs.

"And your mom said to stay out of the ocean," Johnny scoffs. "Look at you, you love it!"

While he's not watching, the water rises into unusually tall wave, and Tony gets a mouth full of salt water.

"Shit!" Johnny swears, popping up to his feet. "You good, buddy?"

So maybe they're going to have to hold off on the surfing for a while.

"Come in," Paige moans, rolling over and squinting at the door.

Charlie does, carrying the baby with Briggs trailing behind her. "Someone wanted to see his Aunt Paige."

Humming contentedly, Paige reaches up to stroke a finger over the baby's cheek, brushing hair out of her face with the other hand.

"Hi, little guy," she croons. "Where are you three going this morning?"

Paul and Charlie exchange a look. "Well," Paul starts. "Us two…" He gestures between himself and Charlie. "…need to check in at the FBI. So you two-"

"No!" Paige yelps. "No, no, no! Charlie, I _can't_."

Because really, she can't. As much as she loves her honorary nephew, her nerves have kept her from picking him up or spending any time alone with him.

"Yes, you can," Charlie explains patiently. "You've just been psyching yourself out. You'll be fine."

"But-"

"Here's what's gonna happen. I'm going to put the baby on the bed, and we're going to leave."

And they do.

"Bond!" Charlie orders on their way out.

Paige hesitantly crawls to the edge of the bed, where Tony is laying, playing with his feet.

"Hi," she whispers. "I'm going to pick you up now. But it's okay because I'm not going to drop you, and if I do, we're on a soft bed."

Carefully supporting his head and neck, she slowly slides him into her arms.

"There we go," she laughs, a little hysterically. "Look at us."

Cradling him tightly against her chest, she bends down to press a kiss against his tummy. When she straightens back up, he grabs onto her hair and doesn't let go. Paige laughs and gently untangles his fingers, rubbing her thumb over his palm. "Yeah, we're okay, huh? Aren't we baby boy?"

On the other side of the door, sitting on the hallway floor, Charlie lifts her hand for a high five. Paul obliges.

"Paul. Paul? Wake up."

"Hmm?"

"It's nine o'clock."

He frowns, tracing her cheekbone with his thumb. "How did we do that?"

Charlie sits up on her elbow and shrugs. "Does this mean he slept through the night?"

Groaning, Paul swings his legs over the side of the bed and shuffles over to the bassinet. He looks down, and his forehead crinkles in confusion.

"Hey, Chuck?"

"Hmm?"

"Where's our son?"

She bolts upright, wondering why some maternal alarm didn't go off in her head to prevent this from happening. "I'm so well rested, I don't even know. Should I be panicking?"

"We'll interrogate the others. Then we'll panic."

From the hall, they hear Jakes muttering in a tone of voice they've never heard before. They sneak towards the door, open it a crack, and peer out.

Dale is bouncing the baby on his shoulder, tenderly rubbing his back and humming under his breath.

"Take it easy, big guy," DJ whispers. "I got you."

Resting her head against Paul's shoulder, Charlie smiles sadly.

"Let's just…

Briggs nods. "Yeah, let's grab some more shut eye."

When they're settled in bed, on their sides, facing each other, Paul sighs. "He would have been a really good dad."

"Don't!" Charlie moans, sounding pained. "Let's just let him have this."

In the hall, Tony drifts off to sleep, and Dale smiles.


	18. Amateurs (MikePaige)

**Amateurs**

The first time they get the house to themselves after they get together, Paige can't stop grinning at him.

"What?" he asks, laughing because he's feeling the same giddiness that she is but hiding it much better.

Paige shrugs and reclines on the couch, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth and smiling widely.

"We're not making out on the couch like two teenagers whose parents are out of town," Mike says firmly.

"We're not?" she asks skeptically.

She stretches and her shirt rides up on her torso, exposing her midriff and the red mark he left there when he was nipping at her waist that morning.

Sometimes Mike is wrong. This is one of those times.

He flops down next to her on the couch and reaches for her hips, but she's already moving until she's on top of him, straddling his thighs with her hair hanging down in his face.

"Hi," she whispers, grinning mischievously.

"Hi." His voice almost gives out when she nuzzles his neck, planting kisses under his jaw.

"Hey, Mike?"

Should they be talking now? Is it really the time? He presses his lips her to hers, hoping to make that clear. "Yeah?"

"Seems like…" Kiss. "…we're making out…" Kiss. "…on the couch…" She moans into his neck, and Mike swallows. "…like two teenagers."

He rolls her over onto her back and Paige shrieks with laughter as he climbs on top of her. "Well, you know. I have to let you win sometimes."

She nips his bottom lip for that, and he's about to retaliate when they hear the front door slam against the wall. They push apart so hard that Mike lands on the floor, sprawled out half under the coffee table.

"What are you doing?" Jakes asks suspiciously, throwing his keys on the table and dropping down next to Paige.

"Stretching," Mike lies. "I strained my back."

Dale frowns. "I think you're doing it wrong."

"It's not funny," Mike complains, as Paige rolls with hysterical laughter and nearly falls off the bed. "It's not!"

"It is!" She's doubled over, clutching her ribs which are starting ache from laughter, and Mike can't help but join in.

"You should be more sympathetic," he snorts, wrapping his arms around her. "If I don't think of an excuse before tomorrow morning, Jakes's acupuncturist is going to jab needles into my spine. All because you couldn't keep your hands off me."

They lay down next to each other, face to face on their sides. Everyone else has gone to bed, and Mike managed to slip into her room unnoticed, so now they're in her bed, in the dark, just enjoying the rare time to themselves.

"Jakes doesn't have an acupuncturist. He's just messing with you," Paige assures him.

"Good to know." He slides on top of her, teasing the hem of her nightshirt and tangling his hand in her hair. She arches her back, and somehow they knock against the headboard, which hits the wall and sends a heavy wooden picture frame crashing to the floor.

They both bolt upright, and Mike presses his palms to her cheeks. "You alright?"

Paige blinks. "Yeah, fin-"

"Paige? Is everything okay?"

Exchanging a panicked look, they stiffen. "Fine, Charlie!"

"That's bull, I'm coming in!"

"Go!" Paige hisses, shoving him off the bed. This has happened before and usually he would make a mad dash for the closet, but this time, the door is already swinging open, so he swallows his pride and rolls under the bed.

Her room gives the outward appearance of being neat, but Mike knows better from the dozen dirty socks and granola bar wrappers clinging to him as Charlie sits on the bed and worries about how _flushed_ and _warm_ Paige is.

Mike smirks.

When Charlie finally leaves, Paige hangs upside down from the bed and grins at him. "Hurt your back again, Levi?"

"Why am I always the one on the floor?" he grumbles.

From the surveillance van, Johnny and Mike watch Paige work her magic on their latest mark. The guy is getting bolder and bolder, and eventually works up the courage to slap her ass. Paige flinches away, and Mike feels a pain in his chest that has him reaching for his gun.

"We need to pull her out of there."

Draining the remainder of his coffee, Johnny scoffs. "What? She's fine, it's Paige."

"So?" He's on his feet now because even though he knows Johnny's right, he can't keep sitting there while Paige is squirming out of some other guy's grip with that uncomfortable look on her face. "That means he's allowed to feel her up?"

Johnny eyes him strangely. "No, but it means she'll scam him, bust him, and step on his throat when no one's looking. Dude, what is wrong with you? Why is this bugging you so much?"

Mike sputters and thinks desperately for an answer, finally coming up with, "No one _likes_ the objectification of women, Johnny."

" _Yeeeah_ ," Johnny says slowly. "And I get that, man. I really do. But you need to like, find your chill."

"Or at least take your finger off the trigger," he mutters, pointedly pulling Mike's gun out of his hands and letting it dangle from his fingers.

Deflated, Mike sits back down and stares at the screen. The guy has his hands on her face, and Mike feels a growl rumbling in his chest. Johnny stares nervously at him like he suspects he's deranged.

Maybe he is.

"I think Paige has a new boyfriend."

When Charlie comes into the kitchen, Mike is mid-swallow, and when she says _that_ , his omelet goes down the wrong pipe and he chokes on it. Paul pounds on his back without looking up from his newspaper. "What makes you say that?" he asks casually.

She shrugs. "I can tell. I always can."

Mike goes back to his breakfast and tries to block them out, but his nerves won't allow him to tune out completely.

"I think she really likes this one," Charlie continues, resting her head in her hands. His face feels warm, and Mike doesn't know why.

"Well, good for Paige then." Paul glances at Charlie's face and realizes that was the wrong thing to say. "Not good? Help me out here, Chuck."

 _Yeah, what's wrong with that?_

There's nothing left on Mike's plate, but he wants to hear the rest of this conversation so he starts washing his plate and skillet as slowly as possible, straining to hear Charlie's low voice.

"No, it's good. It's just…" She hesitates, shaking her head at her own thoughts. "She's not used to liking them this much." Charlie explains. "So they can't usually hurt her."

Paul tucks her under his arm and kisses her temple. "You don't know that he'll hurt her," he reasons. "And if he does, we'll track him down, you'll tattoo his sins on his forehead, and I'll make it so his face doesn't look like a face anymore."

The skillet is slick from the soap and slides out of his hands on the floor. Mike winces.

Briggs looks up at the crash and grins. "You want to pitch in, Mikey Mike? Take a few swings?"

"Yeah," Mike mutters. "I'll kick his ass."

He finishes up and makes a swift escape, trying to ignore the faint sounds of Charlie and Briggs plotting at the kitchen table as he climbs the stairs. He needs to find Paige.

Charlie grins. "Think we made our point?"

Nodding, Paul shakes his head, staring out the window where Romeo and Juliet are ambling down the beach, hand in hand. "Are you at all insulted that they really think we don't know?"

"They're not underestimating us, they're just overestimating themselves," she rationalizes.

She takes a sip of coffee and smiles, remembering earlier that week. "Under the bed," Charlie snorts. "Good one, amateurs."


	19. Simmer (BriggsCharlie)

**Simmer**

Francesca's ragú is simmering on the stove, and everyone else is out for the day, leaving the house blissfully silent. Her damn back is out again, and while she hates being laid up from field work, she certainly doesn't mind having the house to herself for once.

Well, almost to herself.

"Paul Briggs," she calls. "I can feel you staring."

He grins at her. The son of a bitch actually grins at her like he's not afraid of what will happen if he pisses her off. For his sake, she hopes that's not true.

"I can't help it," he chuckles, coming up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist. "I just can't stop looking at you, thinking about how I'm such a lucky man."

Charlie rolls her eyes. "That's freaky and I'm telling you to knock it off."

But still, she tilts her head when he nudges it with his cheek, granting access to all sorts of dangerous zones that she should really keep out of reach if she wants to continue undisturbed.

"You sure I can't have a taste?" he teases.

"Of me or the sauce?" she asks, shaking her head because that was corny and it's his fault for being such a sap and slowly turning her into one too. It'll happen, if she's not careful. She can feel it.

Paul smiles because he knows damn well what he's doing. "I know better than to ask to taste the sauce."

She watches him out of the corner of her eye as she spoons a bite of sauce in her mouth, humming in satisfaction both because her sauce is _perfect_ and because Briggs is practically squirming at her side. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kisses him hard, knowing he'll be able to take taste the sauce lingering on her lips. Paul moans and slips his thumb into the side of her waistband.

Johnny clears his throat. "Hi," he says, smiling smugly. "I'm Joe Tutorro, I'm one of the four other people who live in this freakin house."

"Johnny…"

"See," he explains loudly, crunching on an apple. "I just came in to get something to eat, but this…this watching you slobber all over each other over an open pot of something you're gonna make us eat, this is good too."

Charlie bristles and pushes Briggs off of her, settling her hands on her hips. " _Make you?_ Really, Johnny, I make you eat my sauce?"

"I'm just saying you have a bedroom. Two of them!"

Briggs smirks and kisses her forehead, tugging at Johnny's hood on the way out of the kitchen.

Three days, Charlie thinks crossly. She won't last three days stuck in this kitchen.

The next afternoon, she must be distracted (probably by the same thing that's distracting him) because she doesn't notice him until she's pressing the silverware drawer shut with her hip and he comes up behind her to…help. Sandwiched between his hips and the cabinet, Charlie leans against the counter and breathes deeply. With his chin on her shoulder, Paul chuckles into the side of her neck.

Paige clears her throat.

They jump apart.

"Thank you," Charlie says, coughing awkwardly. "That drawer was really stuck, and-"

"Don't bother," Paige says, grinning. "We already know you're gross for each other."

She lifts the lid on the pot, and it's a testament to just how flustered Charlie is that she doesn't whack her wrist with a spoon. "Sauce night?"

Charlie nods. "Tomorrow. Mark your calendar."

Paige hisses and makes a face. "Wish I could, but I can't. I'm on a no carb…" She waves her hands for assistance when she can't remember the appropriate word. "… thing."

"Not in this house, you're not," Charlie says, sounding personally insulted by the idea.

Paul sighs. This is actually a pretty frequent battle between the two of them - Paige, who's prone to cleanses and health fads, and Charlie, whose Italian ancestors are offended by the very thought. (Or something like that. Admittedly Paul zones out sometimes.)

"Tell her she doesn't need to keep doing this shit," Charlie demands. "She's perfectly healthy."

"I…" He opens his mouth, then falters and closes it again. "I don't want anything to do with this," he admits honestly.

So he leaves.

Later, when he checks back in with them, he finds them sitting on the kitchen floor, giggling drunkenly and eating slices of white bread straight from the bag. Which is strange, but again, he wants nothing to do with it.

He sighs and turns back up the stairs to head to bed. Alone.

Jesus, sauce night can't come soon enough.

Somehow the stove seems to be heating up the entire counter, and she knows this because she feels the heat against the bare strip of skin between her jeans and t-shirt as she lays on the counter with Paul above her, nipping at her neck.

She should care more that they're doing this in a shared area of the house.

But she doesn't.

"Paul," she moans through laughter because they shouldn't be doing this. They really, really shouldn't be doing this.

"Oh, wow." Mike whistles lowly as he passes by them on the way to the fridge. "Classy.

Charlie flips him off. "Screw you."

She goes back to doing what she shouldn't be doing because who is he to be all high and mighty? But then she sees the look on his face and frowns.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he says shaking his head. "Do we have strawberries?"

Charlie shakes her head. "No, we have 'sit your ass down and tell me what's wrong'. Help yourself."

He looks to Briggs for help, but Briggs just shrugs.

"I think the lady wants you to sit your ass down and tell her what's wrong," he says helpfully.

Mike sighs and does as he's told, making a face and sliding back when he realizes how close to their faces he is when sitting on a bar stool at the counter. "Really, you're not going to get the hell off each other while we have this conversation?"

"No."

"Absolutely not."

"Nice." Mike nods like that's what he expected. "What does Paige like?"

Paul and Charlie exchange a look.

"Arresting people," Charlie suggests.

"Beating people up and then arresting them."

"Making people think she's going to have sex with them and then arresting them."

"Purple!"

"Good one," she praises, leaning up to kiss him again before turning back to Mike. "Why do you need to know?"

He shrugs. "She's mad. She's…really mad. And none of that was helpful."

"Sure it was. You let her do all that and wear purple while you do it." Charlie ruffles Mike's hair before casually moving her hand back to Paul's shoulder and stroking her thumb across the back of his neck.

Mike scowls. "Your hair is really close to the stove right now, and I hope it catches fire."

When he's gone, Paul trails kisses from her neck to just below her ear. "Three hours until dinner is over and you're free to leave the kitchen."

"Yeah? And just what do you think happens then?" she asks smugly.

He gives her a preview.

Later, in a little _more_ than three hours because either the others don't understand the urgency of the situation or they do and just like screwing with them by eating as slowly as they can, Charlie and Paul are alone in the kitchen.

"I'm going to go upstairs…" she whispers, running a finger just under the hem of his shirt.

"Yeah?"

"…and _you_ should take a look at the chore wheel."

 _No_.

"No," he moans.

"Yes," Charlie laughs, headed for the stairs. "Enjoy the dishes."

She cackles all the way up, and Paul stands there, stunned, for maybe a minute before he drops the tea towel in his hands and races after her.

Screw the dishes.


	20. Stained (Charlie and Paige)

**Stained**

Paige is staring at the puddle of sauce on the table, wondering if she's supposed to spray it with this cleaner stuff first or try to mop it up with the paper towels. Can she just put the table cloth in the washing machine like this?

"That's hardwood floor cleaner," Charlie sighs, taking the spray bottle out of her hand and looking like she's concerned about sending her out in the world on her own someday. "But thanks for trying."

She groans and idly scrubs at the stain with a napkin. "Doesn't look like much, but the table cloth was my mother's. And some aunt of hers had it before that."

"We'll fix it," Paige says, even though she's not sure how to go about doing that. "I don't know why, but I feel like you're probably not the first woman in your family to pour sauce all over that thing."

Charlie laughs and shakes her head, sinking to the floor and patting the spot next to her. After grabbing the white wine from the end table, Paige slides over next to her and offers her a sip from the bottle.

"Nah," Charlie says. "You go ahead. I want to stay sharp for tomorrow."

She shrugs. More for her. "It sucks that your plan got screwed up."

"Yeah, it's funny how that happened," Charlie mutters, staring at the staircase before shaking whatever she was thinking out of her head. She pats Paige's knee and forces a smile, the same careful, fake one that everyone else has been giving her since she was _sold_. "At least we can get it over with, and then we'll all put in some time looking for your girl."

"Stop." Paige scowls and takes a swig from the bottle, trying not to roll her eyes. "I'm not stupid, I know she's dead."

"Hey," Charlie says sharply. "No, you don't. You have no proof that that girl is anything but perfectly fine. What, did you find DNA?"

"I didn't have anything to compare it to!"

But Charlie is not the one she really wants to be having this fight with, so when her hand comes up to guide her head down onto her shoulder, Paige doesn't resist. With her head held tightly between Charlie's shoulder and chin, the exhaustion that's been building in the back of her mind and in her muscles nearly knocks her flat. "You can't really believe that she's alive."

Charlie hesitates. "I believe that's the best thing for you to believe," she says finally. "I want that for you."

So, no.

There's silence for a minute, but Paige can sense that Charlie is working up to something, so she doesn't interrupt. She isn't disappointed.

"You know, I'm not the only one who believes that," she says cautiously, apparently perfectly aware that she's wading into choppy waters. "And I'm not saying you don't have every right to hate him, but-"

"I don't," Paige murmurs, flushing. "That's the problem."

Charlie freezes, gently easing her off her shoulder so they can talk face to face. And because she's evil and intuitive like that, she untangles the wine bottle from her fingers and sets it aside, leaving Paige without any sort or crutch for this conversation.

"You think you should hate him," she confirms. "But you can't?"

Paige nods and swallows.

"And that makes you feel…guilty?"

"Like I didn't care about her enough," she mutters, shrugging. She can't believe she's admitting this. How much of that wine did she down before Charlie took it away? "Like I'm betraying her."

" _Paige_ …" Charlie doesn't say anything else, but sets the bottle back down in front of her. Paige laughs.

"He lied to me, he covered up a _murder_ , and I still…"

She chokes back another laugh and doesn't think about how to end that sentence because that's not something she was ready to say out loud even before all of this. "I mean, what does he have to do, kill someone?"

For some reason, Charlie winces. "I get it," she says, smiling wryly. "You can't help what you feel. Just because you love someone doesn't mean you love everything they do."

"Yeah, but…" She groans into her hands. "This was bad. Really bad."

Charlie nods, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth. "Trust me, it could be worse."

Something about that seems…off, and Paige looks up from cupped hands to study her face closely. "Is there something going on with you? You don't usually go all woman scorned on our dinner."

Come to think of it, Charlie hasn't been herself for days now. And she looks so tired…

Paige jokingly rests her hand on her forehead, until Charlie bats her away.

"Everything's fine," she promises after a few seconds. "Just this damned case."

"I hear you," Paige agrees, standing and offering a hand for Charlie to pull herself up on.

They leave the mess for others to deal with in the morning. The table cloth can't be saved.


	21. Pocked (Jakes and Johnny and Paige)

**Pocked**

 _Dale Jakes does not like sick people. Why is this happening to him?_

Briggs knocks on his door late in the morning, and that's never good, so Jakes sits on the bed with his head in his hands, waiting for his day to be ruined.

At Jakes's wave, Paul lets himself in and closes the door behind him. (Again, nothing good can come of this.)

"Paige and Johnny are back from their op," he explains, and Dale wonders what that has to do with him. Internally, because if he asked out loud, he'd get an answer, and that's the last thing he wants.

"Does Johnny have the plague?" he asks snorting. That was the explanation they got for why the op was coming to an early conclusion, but cell service was choppy in the surveillance van so they never got any context for that.

"No, Paige exaggerated." Paul laughs. "Does have a nasty case of the pox."

"Small?"

"Chicken."

Dale grins. "No shit?"

Paul nods. "Paige, too."

He's picturing Johnny covered in spots, chuckling at his housemates' misfortune when he realizes that Briggs is making that "bad news" face.

"Glad you feel that way," he says slowly. "Because I have to pick up where they left off, and Mike and Charlie have never had them, so…"

"No, _no_." Jakes said firmly. "I am _not_ -"

"You are," Briggs corrects, leading the way to Johnny's room.

And because he already knew that, Jakes follows, all the way into the apparent quarantine ward.

"She's scratching!" Johnny tattles, jabbing an accusing finger in Paige's direction.

Paige scowls and digs a fingernail into his side. "I'm not even sick! I'm just in here because I've been stuck in a van, breathing the same air as patient zero over here."

For a second, Jakes is optimistic because Johnny alone is definitely better than Johnny and Paige egging each other on. But when Briggs graciously offers to set Paige free if she removes the sweatshirt she's wearing over her t-shirt and Paige refuses, his hopes are dashed. "You have it, too," he says glumly, more unhappy for himself than her. "Don't play that."

Shrugging, Paige sheds the sweatshirt, revealing her speckled arms, and blatantly scratches at the splotches.

Briggs swats her hand. "Stop that," he admonishes, then levels Johnny with a glare when he snickers. "Jakes is going to help you out today. Try not to piss him off."

Then he leaves, and Jakes is officially in charge. "Go to bed," he orders Johnny, before turning to Paige. "Do you want to go to your room, or…okay." He trails off as she climbs into the bed next to Johnny. "Yeah," he sighs. "That seems about right."

There's some general shoving and elbowing as they both try to get comfortable at the expense of the other until Jakes shoves a pillow between them to put a stop to it. He puts a hand on each of their foreheads, hesitantly because while Paige's face is still clear, Johnny's is freckled with pox and kind of nasty looking.

"You're hot," he says, frowning. Johnny pretends to swoon at the compliment, and Jakes considers leaving them there to scratch themselves to death. "I'm gonna go get you…something, I don't know. Do you need anything?"

"Make it stop itching," Johnny groans. Paige nods her agreement.

"Don't think I can do that," Jakes says honestly, before swinging the door open and almost running into Charlie, who's hovering in the hall.

"Well?" she demands.

Dale frowns and starts down the stairs. " _Hi_. How are you? Better than me, I presume. Weather's nice today. Any of that cover why the hell you're following me?"

Charlie catches the back of his shirt, unamused. "How are they?"

"Whiny," he decides. "Irritating. Kinda ugly at the moment, if I'm being honest."

"How are they feeling?" she snaps.

Searching through the medicine cabinet for something…strong looking, Jakes considers that. "Warm, mostly."

Charlie snatches a bottle off the top shelf and hands it to him, glaring. "How warm?"

"I don't know," he complains. " _Warm_. Like, I felt it, but I didn't burn myself or anything."

"That's nice. That's real nice. I'm going in there."

She darts up the stairs. Jakes swears and chases after her. "Hey, hey!"

"Uh uh, not gonna happen," he says firmly, standing in front of the door. "I've got my hands full with them already. You think I wanna spend all day taking care of you too?

"Because you're doing such a great job so far?"

Jakes ignores that because he's actually doing a fantastic job, thank you. For a second, he wonders what would happen if he stopped caring and let her get sick because that seems to be what she damn well wants to do, but comes to the conclusion that Briggs would kill him and closes the door with her on the outside.

"She's scratching!" Johnny complains again. "Tell her not to scratch. I'm barely holding it together over here, and I don't need her tempting me."

"No one scratches, or I cuff your hands behind your back," he says simply.

Johnny blinks. "That's…harsh."

Frowning, Paige inches closer to Johnny. "Yeah, most people use oven mitts or duct tape or something."

"Why would I use oven mitts when I have handcuffs?" he asks, carefully pouring up to the line on the medicine cup. Paige dutifully gulps it down, but when he pours a second capful for Johnny, the younger agent scowls in distaste.

"Yeah, that's gonna be a no," he assures him. "That stuff's gross."

"Either get over it, or let that fever fry your brains," Jakes suggests, holding the medicine under his nose.

Paige somehow manages to glare and roll her eyes at the same time. Could she always do that? Or did Charlie teach her?

" _Or_ ," Paige says pointedly. "We have the same stuff in pill form in the bathroom cabinet."

Okay, so he's the errand boy now. That's great. He goes to get the meds, hanging Johnny's handcuffs threateningly from the doorknob, as a reminder to behave in his absence. He matches the bottle to what looks like the same stuff from the medicine cabinet and fills a glass of water, returning just in time to find Mike skulking outside Johnny's door.

"Hey!" Jakes yells. "Your girlfriend's Typhoid Mary right now, get away from there."

Mike rolls his eyes. "What's the harm in going in there for like two seconds?"

Eyeing him warily and making note of the fact that he didn't _deny_ the girlfriend crack, Dale pushes the door open and nods towards the two on the bed, who look considerably more miserable than when he left. Paige has developed marks on her forehead and cheeks, and she's leaning her head on Johnny's shoulder. Johnny looks no better, coughing violently into his elbow.

"That's the harm," he says smugly, almost feeling guilty that they deteriorated just in time to prove his point.

"They're okay right?" Mike asks hesitantly, watching as Paige sleepily rubs at a spot under her eye. "They look bad."

"They'll be fine." Probably. They actually look rougher than he would have expected.

He kicks Mike out and makes him stay out by relying on good old fashioned guilt, telling him that the more time he spends arguing with him in the hall, the less time he spends with the lepers.

Paige has her pant leg rolled up to her knee, scratching at her spotted shin when he enters.

"I know, handcuffs," she groans when he knocks her hand away. Jakes shrugs and supervises as Johnny takes his medicine.

"I won't cuff you," he promises. "Just…take it easy."

He sits next to the bed, facing the door to make sure that no one goes in or out. It's only a few minutes before the medicine knocks Paige out, and Johnny follows seconds after.

Which is where Paul finds him, hours later, dozing with his head on the bed unconsciously scratching at his ribs.


	22. Break a Few (Paige)

**Break a Few**

"Breakfast in twenty," Paige announces, and Jakes falters.

He rubs his sleep heavy eyes, peering at the mess on the counter and trying to process what's happening. "So," he says slowly, "Are you like, _watching_ it for someone?"

"No," she says, looking at him like she's not sure why he would think so. "I'm making it."

Oh. That's…he so confused. How early is it, and what is happening?

With his head on his arms, he leans on the table and lets himself drift. Probably when he wakes up, this will have been a hallucination.

The first thing Johnny sees when he comes down the stairs is Jakes asleep on the table, vulnerable to all sorts of great pranks and other fun activities. Unfortunately, he stirs as Johnny approaches and ruins all of that.

"You're sleeping," he accuses giddily.

"Paige is cooking," Jakes retorts.

Johnny startles and whirls towards the stove. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Making breakfast," Paige snaps defensively, wielding a spatula that looks unnatural in her hand. "Why is that such breaking news?"

"Because you've never done it before." Then, after a pause and some consideration, "And because of that 'birthday cake' you tried to make for Charlie."

That's a fair point, and they all know it. Paige frowns but doesn't comment. She flips an omelet onto a plate and covers it with foil to keep it warm. "I think I forgot to put eggs in it," she reflects, thinking back on the chocolate mass of gunk that somehow turned out chewy, hard, and (in some places) liquid all at the same time.

"We had to get a new garbage disposal," Jakes chimes in. "It got stuck on the blades and hardened."

Paige shrugs, unconcerned. "So I can't bake."

While they're staring, dumbfounded and slack-jawed, sitting side by side at the kitchen table, Charlie comes in, slowing as she passes the counter. She hesitates, instantly suspicious.

"Good morning," she says, feigning exuberance and trying to convey anything but the borderline fear that she's actually feeling. "Quite the production you have going on here."

Paige smiles and nods.

Charlie waits for an explanation, but Paige pays her no mind, using an egg shell to separate the yolk from the egg white.

"Can I give you a hand with anything?" she offers, glancing at Jakes and Johnny, but they just shrug. They know no more than she does and probably less than that.

Shaking her head, Paige nudges Charlie's hand away from where it's twitching towards the foil covered plate. "You like green peppers in your omelet, right?"

"And tomato," she confirms. "But you don't have to-"

Paige turns to get a tomato from the other counter and wordlessly starts to dice.

"Okay," Charlie says, chuckling under her breath as she joins the others at the table. "Thank you."

Briggs half expects someone to be holding a gun on his housemates when he sees their strained faces, but when he sees what's actually happening, he recovers and conceals his surprise.

"Hey, good lookin," he says cheerfully, stealing a piece of pepper from the bowl on the counter. "Watcha got cookin?"

"A nice helping of sit down and get your dirty fingers out of my ingredients, how does that sound?"

He laughs and backs off, hands held high in the air. "Good to see you getting back on the horse after that little kabob debacle."

Paige sucks in a sharp, irritated breath and closes her eyes, tired of taking flack for that particular mishap. " _Okay_ , I'd like to point out that it didn't say anything on the skewer package about soaking them beforehand."

"There was a fire," Charlie calls from the table _. Like anyone forgot._ "An actual, literal fire."

Again, Paige shrugs. "So I can't grill."

Briggs doesn't argue with that because he's not sure how to. He glances at Charlie to see how she wants to play this.

"Sit down, so we can eat breakfast," she says simply.

Grinning, he slides in next to Charlie, raising his eyebrows and pecking her forehead.

When Paige places a piece of bread into each toaster slot and walks away, Johnny is quick to jump in.

"P, you know you have to push the thing down?"

Charlie swings her legs up on the bench, reclining casually against Paul's shoulder and miming pressing the lever on the toaster for added clarification.

Paige rolls her eyes, then narrows them in their direction. "Thanks guys. When it is _actually time_ to make the toast, that's advice that I'll keep near and dear to my heart."

When Mike finally wanders into the kitchen, Paige smiles sweetly at her housemates, pointedly pressing the level down.

"Nice of you to join us, Agent Warren," she says coolly. "We were just about to eat."

He blinks sleepily at her, shaking his head when he realizes what she's trying to prove. "Has anyone ever told you that you should let go of things more often?"

"Not recently," she says loftily, pushing him into a chair. "Definitely not last night."

He only kind of understands that remark and she may not even be referring to what he thinks she's referring to, but still he blushes, avoiding eye contact with his other (grinning) housemates.

"You know what… _this_ is?" Charlie demands, waving her hands to indicate all the kitchen happenings.

Mike sighs and nods. "I may have implied that she couldn't cook breakfast."

"Implied?" Charlie says skeptically.

"Said," Mike admits.

"Breakfast?" Paul ventures.

"Anything," Mike amends.

There's some general groaning from the others because apparently telling Paige that she can't do things has never worked out well for anyone before. Mike shrugs because how the hell was he supposed to know that?

Paige serves their omelets (personalized for their individual tastes) and sets plates of bacon, sausage, and toast down in the middle of the table for everyone to share. Then, stretching groggily and rolling her neck, she heads for the door.

"You're not gonna eat with us?" Jakes calls, staring, bewildered, at the impressive spread on the table.

"I think I've had enough of you this morning. All of you," she says, still bristling from their underestimation.

When she's gone, they tentatively scoop bites onto their forks but can't quite force themselves to bring the forks to their mouths. Instinctively, when she pokes her head back in, they shovel a bite into their mouths before she sees them hesitate.

"And Mike?" Paige says casually. "While we're on the subject of skills that could use improvement…"

She trails off lowering her eyes and looking away before disappearing around the corner again.

"Paige? Paige!" Mike feels the heat rushing up the sides of his face. "She doesn't mean that," he mutters.

"Mean what?" Johnny mumbles through a bite of omelet. And blessedly, he seems to genuinely not know. "This is good!" he says, sounding astonished. "Why is this good? We _watched_ her make it."

Charlie shrugs, and fills her own plate. She has her suspicions, but they don't need to know that.

Later, when Briggs is emptying the trash (as per chore wheel instruction), Charlie smiles and nods for him to look inside the bag.

Egg cartons, at least four, covered in enough eggshells to make it look like some sort of egg _massacre_ went down in that house. Paul chuckles and shakes his head.

"So, the fight goes down about 10:00…" he guesses.

"Mike's in bed by midnight, maybe…"

"DJ's usually up at 7:00."

Charlie laughs. "So seven hours of practice and one, maybe two, trips to the grocery store later…"

"Miss Paige knows how to cook," Paul finishes. "Easy as that."

Upstairs, Paige is taking a midmorning snooze, exhausted from her very long, very frustrating night.

Mike leaves an omelet of his own making covered in foil on a plate outside her door.


	23. Hello High (All)

**Hello High**

"Stop right here, my good man," Paul commands, waving a hand towards the doorway they were just about to pass. "I'm almost positive that I know these people."

The elderly nurse rolls her eyes and parks the wheelchair just inside the door. Hospital policy says she's supposed to take him back to his room to recuperate and definitely not leave him in the room of someone that he's _almost positive_ he knows, but he's on her last nerve and he might just be safer anywhere where she's not.

"It's Briggs!" Johnny says excitedly, throwing his arms in the air with enough force to knock himself backwards onto the pillows at the head of the bed. "Guys, look! It's Briggs!"

His knee collides with Paige's broken ribs, (they're about level with Johnny sprawled out conventionally with his head at the top of the bed and Paige lying flat with her toes somewhere near his ear), and Paige giggles.

"That hurt," she says breathlessly through her chuckles. "That hurt so bad."

Jakes scowls. "If it hurts so bad what the hell are you laughing about?" That's apparently even funnier because Paige laughs harder, clutching her ribs and stomach. Dales uses his good hand to pin her shoulders to the bed, shaking his head. "And why do we care that Paul's here?"

"Because we love him!" Johnny sing songs. "Don't we, Mikey?"

He hauls Mike's head up from where it's resting on his arms, using his thumb and forefinger to tug a lock of hair at the back of his head until Mike is sitting somewhat upright in his chair. "R'ngggt," Mike slurs.

The others glance at Paige. " _'Right'_ ," she interprets.

"Should you be yanking at him like that?" Charlie asks, climbing into Paul's lap, careful not to jostle his bad knee. The others go quiet, and she frowns. "No, I'm really asking. I don't know."

"I wouldn't hurt Mike. He's my friend," Johnny assures her, dropping his friend's head back onto the bed. "And I love him!"

"Me, too!" Paige announces, before collapsing into another peal of laughter.

"Is she still laughing?" Jakes asks, resting his head against the wall. "Or is that god awful noise just the ringing in my ears?"

Charlie drops her head against Paul's shoulder, reaching up to tangle her fingers in the cord of his pendant. "That's good that he hears that, too," she mumbles.

Nodding somberly, Briggs aims a kiss for the general vicinity of her head but misses and catches his own arm.

"See, even Briggs loves Briggs!" Johnny crows.

Mike's head nearly lolls off the bed, but Johnny catches it just in time. "You cool, man? Maybe we should get him up here, too."

"I'll get up," Paige offers, jumping off to make room and snickering cheerfully when the pain nearly knocks her off her feet. "No one told me I was supposed to be laying down anyway."

She climbs up on the desk chair, sitting on her knees with her arms draped over the back of the chair. "Maybe I was supposed to be doing this all along."

"You weren't," Jakes snaps. "I'm positive."

"You're sure?" Charlie asks, wide-eyed. "How do you know?"

With her feet, she slowly spins Paige's chair, watching her friend's eyes light up like she's at the world's most exciting carnival ride. Johnny watches from the bed, where he's dragged Mike up next to him.

"I love you two," he says sounding awed. "Look at you, making the most out of the situation and all that shit."

Dale scoffs, and Johnny's eyes light on him. "DJ! My man! I-"

"Don't!"

He pokes the side of Johnny's head, and the others gasp in horror.

"Watch it!" Paul orders sternly, wheeling closer. "He has…he hit his…"

The word escapes him and he gestures around his own head to get the point across. "Chuckie, help me out here."

"I think we're in a hospital," Charlie says decisively.

Abashed, Dale hangs his _head,_ gently nudging Johnny's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Jon-boy. I get kinda snappy when I take painkillers."

"How long have you been taking painkillers?" Paige asks pointedly.

Mike's eyes flicker and he starts to mumble again. "Snssewabr'nnnnn."

Paige giggles so hard that she loses her balance and topples to the side, taking out a jar of cotton balls on the way down.

"Mike said something funny," Briggs announces.

"He could have told her what he had for breakfast and she still would have laughed like a freakin' hyena," Jakes points out.

With one eye shut and her tongue between her teeth, Paige launches a cotton ball at him. It lands five feet to the left. Not to be discouraged, she starts launching them by the handful.

Eventually, the nurse has to come to separate them and take them to their own rooms.

She pokes her head in and blinks.

The floor is covered with cotton balls and tongue depressors, and Johnny is pinching DJ's cheeks, declaring his love.

"Wrr'deegetosrgs?" Mike asks sleepily.

Paige shrugs. "South America, I guess."

"I think they gave Mike something that's making him tired," Charlie says confidently. "I can't understand him."

Shrugging, Paul picks a cotton ball out of her hair.

The nurse closes the door.


	24. Nested (Charlie and Paige)

**Nested**

"I can't believe you won't tell us," Paige complains. She gets distracted (again) by the rack of baby clothes to their left and charges into the mix. Charlie sighs and follows, seriously considering handcuffing her to cart. For efficiency's sake.

She rolls her eyes. "I'm not going to say it again. We don't know, so there's nothing to tell."

"Bullshit!" A heavily pregnant mother searching the rack next to Paige startles and glares at her, until Charlie responds with a look of her own and she backs down and walks away.

Snickering, Paige watches her go. "I could have handled it. That's gonna come back to bite you a year from now when you're in Mommy and Me class together."

"Pretty sure I'm not going to be too active in the baby class scene," Charlie snorts. "Besides, I doubt she'd be there. It's Mommy and Me, not mommy and the stick up her ass."

Looking over her shoulder, she's disappointed to see the other woman has wandered too far away to hear her swear. Too bad. It would serve her right, and if they were lucky, she'd confront them and Charlie would get to unleash the torrent of hormonal irritation that's been building all week. (On someone other than the people that she actually has to live with.)

It was one of the worst parts of being pregnant. Especially because she was too damn self-aware for her own good, so she'd have to sit there and wallow in the fact that she was angry with someone who had usually not done anything to deserve it.

Charlie looks at the cart and tries not groan. _Usually_ …

"Paige," she explains as patiently as she can. "We're not buying any of that."

Paige shrugs. "We aren't. I am."

"We don't even know if it's a boy or a girl. And by the time we find out, it will be too late to take those back. Half of it's going to go to waste."

"So we'll donate it," she says dismissively, before leaning in closer with that devilish smirk on her face. " _Charlie_ …you know."

"Paul and I want to be surprised."

"Paul wants to be surprised. And I don't believe for a second that you let that stop you from doing what you wanted."

It didn't. Charlie hesitates.

Paige picks up on it and pounces. "Hey Charlie, what do you think of these?"

She digs into the cart and extracts a tiny dress in one hand and a pair of equally tiny denim overalls in the other hand, holding them both up for inspection.

Damnit.

Charlie tries to keep her expression steady, face calm and even with no micro expressions to be noticed and exploited. She pays equal attention to each and shrugs, even as she feels her eyes sliding to one side…

"Yes!" Paige cheers. "I knew it! Johnny owes me $100!"

"No," Charlie corrects sternly, snatching both outfits out of her hands and letting them fall back into the cart. "No, no. He does not. Because Johnny doesn't know, because _you_ don't know, because I do _not_ know, because Briggs doesn't want to know."

"Yeah, except half of those people you just named _know_."

Taking a deep breath, Charlie stares up at the ceiling. This is good, she decides. It's an exercise in patience. It's going to make her a better parent. "Let's go," she commands. "We're supposed to be looking for a crib."

Still, she doesn't take any of the clothes out of the cart.

They finally make it to the crib section and make their selection, which takes longer than expected because Charlie didn't have anything in mind and wasn't expecting to have so many to choose from. When they narrow it down, she makes Paige stand on the bottom rail of each because they know it's one of the first things Johnny will do and they want it to hold up strong.

"That one," Charlie decides as they test one made of polished cherry wood.

Paige nods and steps down, resting her arms on the railing and resting her head on her arms. She grins and stares down at the display mattress resting at the bottom of the crib. "Can you picture it?"

Charlie can. She mimics Paige's pose on the other side of the crib, looking down at the spot where her own child will lay in less than a year's time. Gently, she reaches out and strokes her finger along one of the mattress seams, where she's envisioning her baby's cheek will be.

Sometimes it's hard to believe how badly she wants this. Hard to believe that a few months ago, she and Paul were actively trying to keep this from happening. She thinks this change is for the better.

"Sheets," she announces, swallowing heavily. "Navy blue, I think."

They sort through packages of crib sheets looking for exactly the right color because apparently they make these things in every shade known to man.

"I don't know any babies," Paige says conversationally, abandoning a pack of too-blue sheets.

Charlie looks at her oddly because that's an _odd_ thing to say.

"You know what mean. I don't know anyone who's had a baby."

"Your brother!" Charlie points out, snorting in disbelief. "He has three!"

Shrugging, Paige hands over some navy blue sheets for approval. "I'm kind of nervous around babies. I usually tell him I'm on assignment in Anchorage until they're a little less breakable."

Charlie grabs the package and hits her with it before she throws it in the cart. "That's the singular most terrible thing I've ever heard. You're calling from the car and apologizing."

" _On assignment_ ," she grumbles as they load their purchases onto the checkout counter.

"By the way," Paige starts.

"If one of the next words out of your mouth is 'Anchorage', this child is sleeping in your room until it learns to sleep through the night."

Rolling her eyes, she hands over the money for the clothes she picked out. "I just wanted to say that I'm really happy for you guys."

Charlie smiles softly. She's pretty damn over the moon too.

"I'm gonna go show the guys with the crib where the truck is," Paige says. Before she leaves, she gently taps one finger on the top of Charlie's still small but noticeable bump. "Bye baby girl," she croons. "Aunt Paige will be right back."

One hand on her stomach, Charlie doesn't bother denying it. It feels good that someone else knows.


	25. Insight (MikePaige)

**Insight**

 _Once, when Charlie's standing on the balcony drinking her morning coffee, she catches Mike, just back from his morning run, on his hands and knees sifting through the sand. She turns right back around and pretends that she didn't, wanting know absolutely nothing more._

 _She'll feel bad if she discovers something that she'll be obligated to make fun of him for._

The face she makes when he brings each new one back from the beach and presses it into her palm is somehow more innocent than any of her other expressions. Eyes slightly widened, lips pulled back in a grin that she's trying to hide, she looks so genuinely delighted that he doesn't even think about listening to her when she tells him that _this is really not necessary_ and how she _doesn't know where she's going to put them all._

Long fingers lightly trace the creases on the surface of the delicate shell, thumb brushing stray grains of sand onto the rug. Mike remembers the same fingers tracing a path up his spine and instinctively steps closer, winding his arms around her waist. Playfully, she makes a half-heartedly move to squirm away, but eventually settles against his chest.

"I like this one," she murmurs, rolling it in her fingers before setting it on the nightstand with the others. "It might be my favorite. Was it hard to find?"

"No," he lies easily. "It just sort of caught my eye. Didn't even have to stop running."

Smiling because they both know that isn't true, she pecks his lips, rests her cheek against his, and waits for him to wind his fingers through her hair to complete the pose.

Paige sighs contentedly when they're settled into position. "Good morning," she hums.

Mike grins. It is.

 _Paige accidentally leaves her door open one morning, and before he can stop himself, Jakes catches sight of what she's doing and slows to a stop. When she sees him, she stops unmaking the bed and flushes, looking like she's about to give an explanation. "No," he says firmly, walking away._

 _He'll count himself lucky that's the worst thing he's seen through her open door._

If you ask Paige, Mike has a real problem. And she thinks it's a lot funnier than he does.

Every morning, it never fails. He cannot allow himself to leave her room without making the bed. And every morning, Paige unmakes it.

When he sees her covers yanked out of place, half on the floor, sheets twisted and pillows by the foot of the bed, Mike takes a long deep breath. "This isn't cute," he says, pointing sternly.

"So don't fix it," she challenges.

"Paige," he groans, laughing as he tries to pull her off the bed by the arm. Grinning, she flops back uncooperatively, pulling him down on top of her. "Why can't you just let me have this?" he complains, digging his fingers into her side until she shrieks and rolls away. "I care whether it's made or not. You don't."

Paige manages to climb onto his chest and pin him to the messy sheets. "So why do I do it?" she prompts.

"Because then I have to come in here and- oh." He gets it and shuts up.

They mess it up again. Together.

 _Briggs finds Paige in the kitchen at two in the morning, four cups of tea steaming in front of her. "Is that mine?" he asks because he's the only one that drinks it so it likely is._

 _She nods, frowning. "I can't tell. Which one helps you relax?"_

 _He hands her the chamomile and makes a cup for himself, shaking his head._

It's so late, but he's still awake, sitting up in bed and torturing himself going over that same case file again and again. Paige watches from the doorway, frowning when she sees him rubbing his eyes. He's so close to sleep, but he just won't let himself go.

She climbs up next to him and forces a trade, the file for the mug of tea.

"Try it," she orders. "It'll help you unwind."

He looks skeptical, so she leans over to slip the file folder under the bed. Out of sight, out of mind. "It does!" she insists. "I tested it."

Tentatively, he takes a sip. He doesn't say anything, but he does keep drinking. Satisfied, she rests her head against his shoulder, deliberately slowing her breathing and hoping he'll unconsciously do the same. She knows they all run a little short on sleep more than every once in a while, but for some reason, it's harder to watch him do it than to do it herself.

His skin heats up as he drinks, warm and solid under her head, and if she weren't so worried, she would be drifting off herself. There's a faint click as porcelain hits wood when he puts the empty mug down on the nightstand.

"Paige?" His finger gently strokes the side of her face. "I have to get back to work."

She feigns sleep, knowing he'll never risk waking her just to get his file back.

When he drifts off a few minutes later, she thinks she deserves more credit than the tea.

 _The TV's flashing in the dark, and Johnny stops to investigate. "Dude, are you watching the shopping network?"_

 _Mike shrugs, and Johnny groans. "I gotta tell you man, sometimes it's like you're asking for it."_

When she finally comes home, he's so distracted that he almost doesn't hear her. She may be used to this kind of work, but it makes him anxious. More so when he realizes that she's shaking, with a bite mark on her neck that he knows he didn't leave. Carefully, he drags his sleeping limbs off the couch and reaches for her.

She rears back a bit. He's not sure if it's because she doesn't want him to touch her or because she doesn't think _he_ should want to after whatever she's been through tonight. But then there's a flash of insecurity on her face, and he knows exactly what she's thinking.

"Come here," he urges, pulling her tightly against him and guiding them both down onto the couch. "It's okay."

Half in his lap, she starts sputter about how ridiculous she's being. How she's done this a million times before and shouldn't still be so affected. That is not exactly comforting to hear, and Mike holds tighter, swaying slightly. "Do you want me to-?"

She nods, and he brushes the hair away from the nape of her necking, placing his own light kisses over the angry, red mark. He tastes beer and nicotine on her skin and winces, thinking about how it got there.

Did anyone wait up for her before he got here?

Settled against his side, she smiles slightly and asks about his evening. Mike kisses her forehead.

Doesn't matter. He'll be there from now on.


	26. Spooked (All)

**Spooked**

"Heads up," Briggs announces, sitting on the coffee table. "Charlie and Paige are holed up in Chuck's room, plotting this week's festivities."

Mike looks up from his laptop and frowns at the horrified expression on Johnny's face and DJ's scowl, which seems more pronounced than it was before Briggs walked in. "What's this week?"

"Halloween." Johnny fakes a shudder, accompanied by a real groan, and Briggs and Jakes nod along.

"I would have thought you liked Halloween."

"I do!" Johnny protests. "I like the way Halloween is supposed to be with the candy and the pumpkins and the half-naked women. But those two are a walking horror show!"

From the other end other couch, with his hands over his eyes, Jakes nods. "Every year, they want us to dress up and we say no. So every year, they unleash holy hell on this house until we agree to do what they want."

"What, like pranks?" Mike chuckles. "They can't be that bad."

Briggs shakes his head. "Don't test them, Michael. Do what I do and surrender early. I just did, and they're letting me be a nice, simple hockey player."

Johnny snorts. "You just wait. Knowing them, you're gonna be impaled on your stick."

Johnny knows what's coming and it makes him very…uncomfortable. He gets a little tense, okay?

So they usually try to put him out of his misery early on and take him out first.

They're all carving pumpkins at the kitchen table when Paige approaches him from behind, and he flinches. She notices and laughs, and he scowls at himself as she hefts his pumpkin into her arms to take it to the counter.

"You good, Johnny?" she asks, twirling a knife in her fingers. She jabs it into the top of his pumpkin, sawing the top off it so he'll be able to clean it out. "You seem a little jittery."

Mike is looking at him like he wants to laugh, and Johnny narrows his eyes. "Don't even! Just don't. You don't know what they're like on Halloween! Last year, they painted a freakin' bloody scar on my stomach while I was sleeping. I thought someone jacked my liver or some other messed up shit!"

"Technically Charlie did the makeup," Paige says, putting his pumpkin down in front of him. "I just poked you with a safety pin so it stung when you woke up."

"Inspired," Charlie compliments, without looking up from her carving.

"Yeah, because that matters." Johnny scoffs and plunges his hand into his pumpkin without looking. He pauses when he doesn't feel the wet, slimy consistency of pumpkin guts and instead feels…

Ghost white, he jerks his hand out fast, knocking the pumpkin onto the floor.

Paige drops an empty trash can over the wreckage to contain the horde of cockroaches trying to escape from the orange mess.

"I'll wear whatever you want, okay?!" he yells, before whirling to point at Mike. "You see?! You see what kind of freaky shit they pull?! And now, I don't even have a pumpkin."

"There's an extra in my room," Paige promises.

Head buried in her arms and face red from laughter, Charlie looks up and says, "We kind of anticipated this."

As he goes to retrieve it, he can hear Mike telling Paige it how nice ( _nice?)_ it was to get him another pumpkin.

"We can be very nice, Mike," she says cheerfully. "We can also be very mean."

"You don't scare me."

 _Bad move, Mikey._

Whereas Johnny walks around in a constant state of paranoia this time of year, Jakes just figures it's going to happen eventually, so he may as well go about his business until it does.

So it's really his own fault that he doesn't see it coming.

He drops his keys on the dresser, flicks the overhead light on, and then promptly turns it back off and walks out, breathing heavily. Resting his hands on his knees, he closes his eyes and tries to get his heartbeat back under control.

"I hate you," he says simply, listening to the cackling in the dark.

Briggs sighs and tugs his rubber clown mask down until it's dangling from his neck. "Sorry about this, man. I didn't want to, but Paige was all excited, and Charlie was…Charlie."

"Did you seem him jump?" Charlie demands through her laughter, doubled over with her forehead pressed to Paige's side. Paige is clutching her stomach, balanced on the arm of Charlie's chair but close to laughing herself off onto the floor

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. DJ doesn't like clowns," Jakes grumbles, yanking Paul's mask off and making a face at it before flinging it into the hall. "What am I looking at here? Werewolf? Zombie?"

Charlie glances at her partner in crime, waits for confirmation, and nods when she gets it. "Scarecrow."

"A dead one," Paige adds.

Could be worse, he guesses. "Scarecrows are made of hay. They're all dead."

Paige shrugs. "Yeah, but they usually start out that way."

That's…a disturbing visual. He doesn't want to think too much about the full implications of that.

"Get out of my room," he says instead. "And burn that damn mask."

Mike's a little underwhelmed when he hears the inhuman howling coming from Paige's room. He's been expecting something big, and really, this is all they've got? He rolls his eyes and continues into his own room.

But then he hears glass breaking and turns around just in time to see the shadow of something huge with pointed ears through the frosted glass. It pounces, Paige shrieks, and Mike runs for her door, hands grasping wildly at his waist for his gun.

It's not there, but he charges in anyway, throwing the door back so hard that he can practically hear it denting the wall.

Paige sits on the bed, completely unharmed and smiling widely. "Hi, Mike."

Breathing out a long rush of air, he relaxes against her desk. "Hi, Paige."

Johnny, dressed in a puffy winter coat and a headband adorned with leopard-print cat ears, scowls. "Am I done here?"

"Good boy," Paige confirms.

Charlie passes him in the doorway and smiles, reaching up to pet his ears. She hands Mike his gun back, and he tries not to think about how she got it.

"I wanted to cover her in fake blood and make it look like she got murdered in her sleep, but Paige wouldn't go along with it," she explains, though she doesn't look too upset with the plan they actually went through with.

Paige shrugs. "I don't know, it just seemed a little too…plausible."

"Thanks," Mike says weakly because yeah, that would have been a little much.

He's not sure he can put up with this every year.

"I look ridiculous," Mike complains.

"You don't," Paige protests, touching up the chalk in her hair with a few more streaks of white. "You look like a zombie gladiator."

"A zombie gladiator is a ridiculous thing to look like."

She shrugs. "Don't let Charlie hear you. She picked it."

"She's busy keeping Johnny from scaring the trick-or-treaters." Mike nods towards the door, where Charlie is smiling kindly at little girl who is curiously running a finger along the intricate spider web patterns wound around Charlie's arms. The design is copied over every inch of exposed skin, disappearing under the edges of her silky black dress. Next to her, Johnny has gotten a little too into his mad scientist costume and is cackling madly, rubbing his hands together.

Briggs and Jakes are watching TV, standing behind the couch to avoid getting fake blood on the cushions. (Johnny had been right, they _did_ want to make it look like he'd been stabbed by his own hockey stick, but decided that wasn't feasible for driving purposes.)

Looking down at his own half-bare chest, Mike gives her a skeptical look. "Yeah, _Charlie_ picked it."

Paige rolls her eyes, giving him a good look at the dark circles under them, painted a darker shade of grey on her already matte grey face. He'll give her this, she _does_ look like a ghost. White dress and pale gray limbs that appear to be almost…

"Are you glowing?" he asks.

"Glow in the dark paint," she confirms. "We go all out for Halloween, Mike."

"Alright, kids!" Charlie announces cheerfully, clapping her hands together. The door is closed, so she must mean them. "Let's go! I'm only 60% sure the paint I slathered all over Paige is nontoxic, so we should probably be quick."

They fall in line behind her, and Johnny nudges him with his oversized, glass beaker. "Mike, you got something blue all over your neck."

Briggs hears their conversation and turns curiously, flipping up his facemask for a better look. "Hey Chuck," he says casually, grinning over his shoulder at them. "You did a good job with P's makeup. She really looks dead. Like, I don't know, her oxygen levels are low or something-"

"Everybody in the car," Paige orders loudly. "You don't want to be the one that makes us late, you've seen what we can do."

"Oh, I'm terrified," Mike teases, when they're the last ones left in the house. Paige grins and uses a fingernail to scrape some of the blue lipstick off his neck.


	27. Downtime (MikePaige)

**Downtime**

"Do we only talk about work?"

Paige squints at him through one eye, before it rolls down to take a pointed, lingering look at where their bodies are resting against each other, sheet tangled in the mix but not really covering anything of importance. "You don't think this is a weird time to ask that?"

"That wasn't talking," he complains, rolling more onto his back so he can see her better. Her eyebrow quirks slightly, but before she can make a crack about the kind of _talking_ he was just doing, he swipes his fingers across her bare ribs until she huffs a laugh and shuffles closer. Slipping off the pillow, her head finds its way to his neck, where it rests as she plants kisses on his collarbone, slowly working her way down. " _Paige_ , I'm serious."

"I'm not so sure I like it when you talk," she grumbles, pulling away and looking at the ceiling. She blows out a long breath that tickles his forehead and seems to consider it. " _'Do we only talk about work?_ ' I don't know…yeah, I guess so."

There's a faint touch on the side of his calf, and he realizes that her foot is roaming and captures it between his own before she distracts him further. "It just seems wrong."

"Not really," she shrugs. "We live at work. When we're not at work, we're not ourselves. Why wouldn't we talk about the only thing that's real?"

Mike smirks against her shoulder. "The only thing?"

Shaking her head, she smiles and tugs her pillow closer to his so she can get closer without laying in the divot between the two. He moves her hair out of the way so he feels her skin on his lips as he kisses down the line of her cheekbone. She hums happily and squirms even closer, never content to stay on her own side of the bed. A pop of color catches his eye, and he props himself up to investigate.

"What's- really? Are you kidding me?"

"What?" she murmurs sleepily as Mike reaches over her and under her pillow. Arm stretched over her side, he unearths a green file folder and bends back the front cover, revealing the cover sheet of an after action report.

"Really?" he demands again, closing the folder and using it smack her hip. Paige looks down and sees what he's going on about, before burrowing into his side and shaking with silent laughter. Eventually, he gives in and laughs too, swallowing most of the noise and turning to keep an eye out for the shadows of his housemates crossing the glass doors.

"That looks bad," Paige admits. "But I'm just being polite. This way, if I wake up in the middle of the night, I can entertain myself without having to wake you."

"First of all, I am literally never opposed to entertaining you," he says, eyeing her suggestively until she's laughing again. Then, quieter, "You wake up in the middle of the night?"

She smiles. "Sometimes. Don't worry, you're an adorable sleeper. Only minimal drooling."

He hits her with the file again before rolling onto his back and holding it up in front his face. "Your folders are weird and unprofessional."

That gets her up on her elbow, staring at him in what looks like delighted incredulity. "Because they're green?!"

"Yes!"

She's cackling now, so hard that she falls off of her elbow and back onto her side. "I like green. You got a problem with that?"

"And I like red, but my file folders are all tan like a normal person's!"

When she looks up at him, he's been doing a pretty good job holding in his own laughter, but the second he feels her eyes on him, he loses it and starts chuckling, pulling her closer to muffle the sound in her hair.

"Red, huh?" Paige mumbles when they've settled. "Figures."

Mike snorts. "I'm not even going to touch that. You're delirious, go to sleep."

Her eyes close and she starts with the little nestling movements that mean she's about to take his advice. Mike should too, but there's something nagging at him that keeps him staring at the crack between the curtains instead of drifting off. "Hey, Paige?"

"Hmm?"

"If you get up, wake me. We'll look at the file together."

Half-asleep, she still finds the energy to laugh at him, and he feels it deep in his chest. "I don't know, Mike. That sounds like a lot of work talk to me.


	28. Sitters (All)

**Sitters**

 _"_ _Hey. We just finished up here, and we're heading back to the hotel. How is he?"_

Jakes sits back on his heels and brushes the sand off his jeans. "Shit, was that this weekend?"

 _"_ _Dale, I swear to god-"_

"Kidding," he laughs. "Kidding. We're good. We're at the park now."

He stands to walk away so he can hear Charlie better, pointing at Johnny so he knows that he's in charge and to keep an eye on Luca.

 _"_ _No problems?"_

"Not really. Some kid was kicking sand at him a bit ago, but Paige took care of it. She tracked his mom down and told her he bit her. Bit her arm and everything to make it look real."

 _"_ _That's some dedicated aunting right there. So everything's okay?"_

"Better than okay, Warren looks damned good with a diaper bag on his shoulder."

Johnny wolf-whistles in agreement, turning to grin at him.

"Johnny!" he hisses, phone pressed to his shoulder. "He's eating sand!"

 _"_ _What was that?"_

Dale winces. "Um, Johnny. He's eating sand. Bet with Mike, I think."

Scowling over his shoulder, Johnny scoops Luca into his arms and uses the edge of his T-shirt to brush the sand off his lips before delivering him to Mike and Paige at the swings. He narrowly avoids being beamed by Paige's outstretched legs as she slows to a stop and reaches for the baby.

"You should be paying me per kid."

He hears Paul snort over the connection and winces at the picture of the two of them bent over the phone together because that's just _sickeningly_ adorable and not like the picture he has of Paul and Charlie in his mind.

 _"_ _We're not paying you at all. You're sure you don't want us to drive back tonight?"_

Mike is off the swing now, pushing Paige on hers as she holds Luca securely in her lap. That one close call has given Johnny an idea, and now he's standing in the path of Paige's swing, feigning terror as he jumps to avoid Paige's legs at the last second and Luca shrieks with laughter.

"We're fine," Jakes says, turning his head so no one sees him smile. "Take your time."

They sit down for dinner on the patio of some restaurant that they almost immediately realize they're too loud for, but they're hungry and already there so they pretend not to notice the dirty looks they're getting from more civilized diners. Luca's meal comes out first, but since he doesn't quite have the teeth to back up this whole solid food thing yet, he waits impatiently in Mike's lap while Paige saws his grilled cheese and green beans into bite-sized pieces.

"It's coming, big guy," Mike promises, bouncing him slightly as he starts to fuss. He hands him a few cheerios from a plastic baggie and flinches when the baby immediately tries to feed them back to him, smacking his face with slobbery hands in the process. He manages to catch one between his lips and holds it upright to whistle through the whole in the middle. Luca giggles.

Not to be outdone, Johnny catches his attention and rips the top off of his straw wrapper so he can blow through the straw and send the paper flying into Luca's lap. Jakes follows suit sends his straight into Mike's forehead. They toss the papers back and forth, folded into little balls so they're easier to land in each other's drinks, until Luca tries to join the fun and launches a napkin-wrapped silverware set at a nearby couple.

"We have no idea where he learned that," Jakes warns sternly, as the rest of their food is brought to the table.

"Damn, Paul," Johnny practices. "Come on, control your kid. Throwing stuff in public…"

They rush to finish dinner, starting to realize that they didn't leave themselves enough time to get home before Luca's supposed to be in bed. Most of the baby's dinner winds up on the floor, in his hair, down his shirt, down _Paige's_ shirt, and tossed into an unsuspecting Mike's soda, but he gnaws at Paige's fries and a few cut up bites of her burger, so it probably evens out.

They're just about to ask for the check when Johnny flags down a waiter to ask for a child-sized sundae.

"Johnny…" Paige warns uneasily, as Mike helps her free her earring from Luca's grasp. "I've never seen them give him ice cream."

"That's because they're his parents and not his fun uncles," he explains, spooning a small bite into the baby's mouth. "What's the big deal?"

"Yeah, Charlie. Everything's fine."

Paige snaps for Dale's attention as he loads the vomit-stained car-seat cover into the washing machine and mimes for him to turn around. When he does, she pulls off her own top, now covered in what used to be vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, and hands it to him so they can keep the contaminated clothing in one load.

When she finally gets Charlie off the phone, she ducks into her room to find a robe and towel so she can wash the baby sick out of her hair. She reaches the doorway to the bathroom and stops dead in her tracks.

"What-?"

Mike is kneeling at the base of the tub, and Johnny is standing in his swim trunks, holding Luca and ready to lower them both into the water.

"We weren't sure how to keep him from drowning," Mike says, embarrassed.

Probably because they put way more water in the tub than a baby could possibly sit upright in, but this way will work too. Besides, Johnny needs a bath anyway. She wasn't the only one hit with secondhand sundae.

She slips into the shower, frosted glass enough to conceal her from view but not block out the noises coming from the tub, where Luca is enjoying the opportunity to squirt his uncles with the bath toys Johnny gave him for Christmas.

"There's a green bean behind his ear! Like, an actual piece of green bean. How does that happen?!"

"Johnny, hold him still!"

Paige smiles.

Finally, Mike coaxes the both of them out of the bath and Johnny takes Luca out to put his pajamas on while Mike cleans up the water all over the floor. On his way out, she sees Mike's blurry shape pause just outside the shower door.

She shakes her head and bites back a smile. "I'm not drowning, Mike."

"Safety first!" he calls over his shoulder.

"Heft and haul, tug and tow, _four_ engines roar, but the truck won't go."

"Dale," Paige whispers. "He's out."

Jakes cranes his neck to get a look at Luca's face, and when he realizes the kid is asleep on his chest, he silently closes My Truck Is Stuck (a "damn good read" according to Paul) and lays it on the floor. He shifts a little, then frowns.

"How do we get him in his crib without waking him?"

The others exchange uncomfortable glances, and DJ groans. "I'm sleeping on the couch tonight, huh?"

"You're young," Paige assures him from where she's sprawled out on the other couch, leaning against Mike's side. "Your back can take it."

So be it then. He closes his eyes and pretends not notice the others doing the same because if he did notice, he would obligated to throw a fit about them all sleeping in the living room like they're at a ten-year-old's slumber party.

"Hey, man?"

"What Johnny?"

"How do they get the truck unstuck?"

Jakes sighs and picks the book back up.

"Honk, honk, no need to panic, here comes a tow truck with a mechanic…"


	29. Sing Like a Canary (All)

**Sing Like a Canary**

"You ICE guys, you take this bird shit real seriously."

"Really Johnny? Right now? You want to talk about this right now?"

Jakes swirls his hands around the air in front of him in a silent _look at where we are right now_. They're alone in the living room, but the guys they're trying to buy a (hopefully) smuggled parrot from aren't far away, negotiating a price in the kitchen.

Grinning, Johnny stands to pace a little, inevitably ending up in front of the grey parrot sitting on a stand by the window. "What about this guy?" he asks, bending to get a better look at the bird. "You gonna ask him for his green card or something?"

"Johnny," Dale hisses at an appropriate volume, demonstrating what that should sound like to his partner, who's speaking far too loudly for their current situation.

"Relax," Johnny says, laughing under his breath. "What, you think they're gonna come back in here and the bird's gonna tattle on us? 'Hey guys, Johnny's a Fed!'"

"Johnny's a Fed."

Johnny blinks. "Fuck."

"What did it just say?" Jakes moans, voice muffled by his knees where his head immediately sank with his hands clasped behind it.

"Johnny's a Fed," the bird repeats.

"Yeah," he sighs. "That's what I thought. I mean, I wasn't asking you, but yeah."

"Johnny's a Fed."

"I still think we could have left him there," Johnny tries, holding a slice of banana to the parrot's beak to see if he'll eat it. "You can't even tell what he's saying. He could be saying Johnny's dead."

"He'd be right too, once Briggs finds out you brought him to the house," Paige says, grinning a little too smugly.

Johnny hisses and points at her, urging the bird in her direction. "Get her, birdman! Get her!"

The parrot preens its wing and hops back, away from the banana that Johnny was holding too close to its face.

"I'm terrified," Paige snorts.

"No one's going to be dead," Charlie says sternly. "Except maybe…"

She makes some vague but violent gestures towards the bird and the others recoil in surprise.

"Charlie!"

"Whoa!"

Johnny claps his hands over the parrot's head, approximately but not definitely where his ears should be.

"It's not like I want to," Charlie defends. "Do I look like a freakin' bird killer to you?"

"You sure sound like one," Mike mutters.

Rolling her eyes, Charlie steps closer to the parrot and refrains from smacking the nearest housemate when they all crowd protectively around it. "I don't like it any more than you do, but snitches get stitches and wind up in ditches. That's the DeMarco way."

There's some awkward shuffling, and somehow Paige gets pushed to the front.

"I think I speak for everyone when I say we're going to pass on killing the bird," she starts patiently. "And also when I say that if you have something you need to get off your chest, I guess, we're here…you know, for that…"

Jakes whistles lowly. "Nicely handled."

There's sound coming from the front entrance, and they hear Briggs call for them as he makes his way into the kitchen.

"Think he'd believe it just…flew in? Like through the window?" Johnny moans.

"Johnny's a Fed," the bird squawks, oblivious.

"You brought," Briggs says slowly, "literally the only pet in the world that can spill its owner's secrets into a house of undercover federal agents."

"Well, if you wanna say it like that," Johnny mutters.

"How should you say it?" Mike asks, fingers slowly hovering towards the parrot's head, lingering a few inches in front of its beak.

"It's not a dog," Charlie snaps, grabbing his hand and guiding it to stroke the feathers on the back of its neck. "It doesn't have to smell you first."

No one can confirm that, so Mike backs up a little, rightfully respectful of how hard a bird like that can bite. But the parrot follows his hand as it retreats, nuzzling its head into his palm. Before he can swat her away, Paige snaps a picture with her phone, smiling at the contented cooing sound the bird is making now.

"See?" Johnny demands, throwing a hand their way. "It likes Mike. How many living things who aren't us can say that? It'll, I don't know, improve his self-esteem or some shit."

"Johnny's frequently concerned about my feelings," Mike deadpans.

"And listen! We can like, leave a message with the parrot when we're going out. No more sticky notes all over the freakin' place."

"I don't think it works like that," Paige frowns. "And we have an answering machine. And phones that make the answering machine only slightly less obsolete than the bird."

Technically they're deadlocked, three against three on the issue. But since Charlie and Briggs are strongly against keeping the bird, with Jakes definitely on their side but not _too_ passionate about the cause, and Paige and Mike for keeping the bird but truthfully not caring that much either way, Johnny is left as the parrot's only strong supporter.

"Sorry man," Briggs says, patting him on the back on the way to his room. "The bird needs to get gone by the morning."

Morning can't come soon enough.

It's 1:34 when the wailing starts, and by 1:40 it's more or less become background noise that can be drowned out with a pillow held tightly over a head. But at a quarter till two, the siren starts.

"Why?" Charlie yells, hands over her ears to muffle the noise of the police siren that the bird is imitating. "Why is it doing that?!"

"It's not his fault!" Johnny screams over the noise. The other housemates are shuffling out of their own rooms now, and he'd really like to speed this up and get them back to bed before they wake up enough to look as pissed as Charlie does. "He's scared! Jakes threw a shirt over his head and birdnapped him to get him here!"

"I did," Jakes confirms, throwing his hands in the air. "Arrest me."

He retreats to his room and slams the door, just as the bird starts to mimic the sound of a truck backing up.

"Johnny, get it to shut up or get it the hell out!"

Charlie disappears too, dragging Briggs, who waves awkwardly at them, behind her.

Johnny frowns and gently runs his fingers over the bird's folded wing.

"Sorry, little dude."

Smiling softly, Paige sighs at her herself and what she's about to do and steps on Mike's foot to jerk him awake.

"Come on," she says, wrapping an arm around Johnny's shoulders. "Let's take him downstairs. Mike and I will help you look after him."

"We will?" Mike mutters sleepily.

It's a long night, but at least by the end of it, no one is too disappointed to see the parrot go. Paige is asleep on the couch, unable to stay up quite as long as the parrot, who watched old movies with her all night and has been quoting Singing in the Rain all morning. Johnny and Mike have an elaborate bowl system spread out on the table, trying to figure out which breakfast cereal the bird prefers, until Jakes blows it all to hell by skipping straight to the Fruit Loops. ("Because the damned toucan likes it.")

He's right.

Charlie and Paul come down at the same time and refuse to look Johnny in the eye, knowing they'll soften their resolve. Like it has some kind of homing radar that attracts it to the person that _least_ likes it, the bird lands on Charlie's shoulder as she makes a call to the cable guy, who was supposed to show up the day before and fix one of the zillion problems that tends to go hand in hand with having the ridiculous number of phone lines that they do.

She spits the address at the phone through gritted teeth and swats at the parrot to get it off her shoulder so she can put the phone down and make breakfast.

"Get off me," Charlie scowls, shrugging furiously as she tries to pull the eggs out of the fridge with a giant bird on her shoulder.

In reply, the parrot repeats their full address, zip code and all, before flying back to its perch between Johnny and Mike.

Stunned silence.

"Jesus Christ," Charlie whispers, horrified. "It can never leave."

"Johnny's a Fed," the parrot says smugly.


End file.
